- COLLATION OF THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARIES
Ci - Cz
- List of Abbreviations for Titles
- PV Cib "Light, torch." Fourth in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau, equated with Hunahpu of the Popol Vuh as Regent of the Fourth Age or Age of Quiche-Maya culture.
- PV Cimi Second in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau, equated with the Came of the Popol Vuh.
- TG Circle. There are several "Circles" with mystic adjectives attached to them. Thus we have: (1) the "Decussated or Perfect Circle" of Plato, who shows it decussated in the form of the letter X; (2) the "Circle-dance" of the Amazons, around a Priapic image, the same as the dance of the Gopis around the Sun (Krishna), the shepherdesses representing the signs of the Zodiac; (3) the "Circle of Necessity" of 3,000 years of the Egyptians and of the Occultists, the duration of the cycle between rebirths or reincarnations being from 1,000 to 3,000 years on the average. This will be treated under the term "Rebirth" or "Reincarnation".
- SEE CYCLE
- OG Circulations of the Kosmos -- Also Circulations of the Universe. This is a term used in the ancient wisdom or esoteric philosophy to signify the network, marvelously intricate and builded of the channels or canals or paths or roads followed by peregrinating or migrating entities as these latter pass from sphere to sphere or from realm to realm or from plane to plane. The pilgrim monads, however far advanced or however little advanced in their evolution, inevitably and ineluctably follow these circulations. They can do nothing else, for they are simply the spiritual, psychomagnetic, astral, and physical pathways along which the forces of the universe flow; and consequently, all entities whatsoever being indeed imbodiments of forces must of necessity follow the same routes or pathways that the abstract forces themselves use.
- These circulations of the kosmos are a veritable network between planet and planet, and planet and sun, and between sun and sun, and between sun and universe, and between universe and universe. Furthermore, the circulations of the kosmos are not restricted to the material or astral spheres, but are of the very fabric and structure of the entire universal kosmos, inner as well as outer. It is one of the most mystical and suggestive doctrines of theosophy.
- TG Clairaudience. The faculty, whether innate or acquired by occult training, of hearing all that is said at whatever distance.
- KT Clairaudience. The faculty -- whether innate or acquired by occult training -- to hear things at whatever distance.
- OG Clairaudience -- In its largest sense the word means simply "clear-hearing." True clairaudience is a spiritual faculty, the faculty of the inner spiritual ear, of which the psychical clairaudience is but a distorted and therefore deceptive reflection; neither is it hearing with the physical ear, so imperfect and undeveloped a sensory organ as the latter is. The power to hear with the inner ear enables you to hear anything you will, and at whatever distance, whether on Mars, or on the Sun, or on the Moon, or on Jupiter, or perhaps even on some distant star, or easily anywhere on Earth. Having this spiritual clairaudience, you can hear the grass grow, and that hearing will be to you like a symphonic musical poem. You can hear the celestial orbs singing their songs as they advance along their orbits through space, because everything that is, is in movement, producing sound, simple or composite as the case may be. Thus in very truth every tiny atom sings its own note, and every composite entity, therefore, is an imbodied musical poem, a musical symphony. (See also Music of the Spheres)
- TG Clairvoyance. The faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Real clairvoyance means the faculty of seeing through the densest matter (the latter disappearing at the will and before the spiritual eye of the Seer), and irrespective of time (past, present and future) or distance.
- KT Clairvoyance. A faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used, it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning both a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Yet even these two great seers, since they could never rise superior to the general spirit of the Jewish Bible and Sectarian teachings, have sadly confused what they saw, and fallen far short of true clairvoyance.
- OG Clairvoyance -- In its largest sense the word simply means "clear-seeing," insight behind the veils, inner visioning. Genuine clairvoyance is a spiritual faculty and is the ability to see and to see aright; and in seeing to know that your seeing is truth. This is no psychical faculty. The clairvoyance commonly called the psychical clairvoyance is very deceptive, because it is a mere moonlight reflection so to speak, and this moonlight reflection is uncertain, deceiving, and illusory. Genuine spiritual clairvoyance, of which the psychical clairvoyance so called is but a feeble ray, will enable one to see what passes at immense distances. You can sit in your armchair and see, with eyes closed, all that you care to see, however far away. This can be done not only in this exterior world, but one can penetrate into the interior and invisible worlds with this spiritual vision, and thus know what is going on in the worlds spiritual and ethereal. This vision is not physical vision, nor that which, on the astral plane, manifests itself as psychical clairvoyance; but true vision is spiritual clairvoyance -- seeing through the inner spiritual eye.
- TG Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and a voluminous writer, who had been a Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He lived between the second and the third centuries of our era, at Alexandria.
- KT Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and voluminous writer, who had been a Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He was one of the few Christian philosophers between the second and third centuries of our era, at Alexandria.
- TG Cock. A very occult bird, much appreciated in ancient augury and symbolism. According to the Zohar, the cock crows three times before the death of a person; and in Russia and all Slavonian countries whenever a person is ill on the premises where a cock is kept, its crowing is held to be a sign of inevitable death, unless the bird crows at the hour of midnight, or immediately afterwards, when its crowing is considered natural. As the cock was sacred to Aesculapius, and as the latter was called the Soter (Saviour) who raised the dead to life, the Socratic exclamation "We owe a cock to Aesculapius", just before the Sage's death, is very suggestive. As the cock was always connected in symbology with the Sun (or solar gods), Death and Resurrection, it has found its appropriate place in the four Gospels in the prophecy about Peter repudiating his Master before the cock crowed thrice. The cock is the most magnetic and sensitive of all birds, hence its Greek name alectruon.
- TG Codex Nazaraeus (Lat.). The "Book of Adam" -- the latter name meaning anthropos, Man or Humanity. The Nazarene faith is called sometimes the Bardesanian system, though Bardesanes (B.C. 155 to 228) does not seem to have had any connection with it. True, he was born at Edessa in Syria, and was a famous astrologer and Sabian before his alleged conversion. But he was a well-educated man of noble family, and would not have used the almost incomprehensible Chaldeo-Syriac dialect mixed with the mystery language of the Gnostics, in which the Codex is written. The sect of the Nazarenes was pre-Christian. Pliny and Josephus speak of the Nazarites as settled on the banks of the Jordan 150 years B.C. (Ant. Jud. xiii. p. 9); and Munk says that the "Naziareate was an institution established before the laws of Musah" or Moses. (Munk p. 169.) Their modern name is in Arabic -- El Mogtasila; in European languages -- the Mendaeans or "Christians of St. John". (See "Baptism".) But if the term Baptists may well be applied to them, it is not with the Christian meaning: for while they were, and still are Sabians, or pure astrolaters, the Mendaeans of Syria, called the Galileans, are pure polytheists, as every traveller in Syria and on the Euphrates can ascertain, once he acquaints himself with their mysterious rites and ceremonies. (See Isis Unv. ii. 290, et seq.) So secretly did they preserve their beliefs from the very beginning, that Epiphanius who wrote against the Heresies in the 14th century confesses himself unable to say what they believed in (I. 122); he simply states that they never mention the name of Jesus, nor do they call themselves Christians (loc. cit. 190). Yet it is undeniable that some of the alleged philosophical views and doctrines of Bardesanes are found in the codex of the Nazarenes. (See Norberg's Codex Nazaraeus, or the "Book of Adam", and also "Mendaeans".)
- WGa Codex Nazaraeus, the Codex of the Nazarenes; the Book of Adam. See Norberg's Codex Nazaraeus.
- TG Coeur, Facques. A famous Treasurer of France, born in 1408, who obtained the office by black magic. He was reputed as a great alchemist and his wealth became fabulous; but he was soon banished from the country, and retiring to the Island of Cyprus, died there in 1460, leaving behind enormous wealth, endless legends and a bad reputation.
- TG Coffin-Rite, or Pastos. This was the final rite of Initiation in the Mysteries in Egypt, Greece and elsewhere. The last and supreme secrets of Occultism could not be revealed to the Disciple until he had passed through this allegorical ceremony of Death and Resurrection into new light. "The Greek verb teleutao," says Vronsky, "signifies in the active voice 'I die', and in the middle voice 'I am initiated'". Stobaeus quotes an ancient author, who says, "The mind is affected in death, just as it is in the initiation into the Mysteries and word answers to word, as well as thing to thing; for telutan is 'to die', and teleisthai 'to be initiated '". And thus, as Mackenzie corroborates, when the Aspirant was placed in the Pastos, Bed, or Coffin (in India on the lathe, as explained in the Secret Doctrine), "he was symbolically said to die".
- TG Collanges, Gabriel de. Born in 1524. The best astrologer in the XVlth century and a still better Kabbalist. He spent a fortune in the unravelling of its mysteries. It was rumoured that he died through poison administered to him by a Jewish Rabbin-Kabbalist.
- TG College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity. Its glory, however, was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo Judaeus, Joseplius, Aristobulus and others. The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners or impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of "hazim". These were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the Sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.
- KT College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity, but its glory was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo-Judæus, Josephus, Aristobulus and others. The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as Theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners and impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of "hazim." There were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha, at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.
- TG Collemann, Jean. An Alsatian, born at Orleans, according to K. Mackenzie; other accounts say he was a Jew, who found favour owing to his astrological studies, with both Charles VII. and Louis XI., and that he had a bad influence on the latter.
- TG Collyridians. A sect of Gnostics who, in the early centuries of Christianity, transferred their worship and reverence from Astoreth to Mary, as Queen of Heaven and Virgin. Regarding the two as identical, they offered to the latter as they had done to the former, buns and cakes on certain days, with sexual symbols represented on them.
- VS Compassion Absolute (III 31) [[p. 70]] (31). This "compassion" must not be regarded in the same light as "God, the divine love" of the Theists. Compassion stands here as an abstract, impersonal law whose nature, being absolute Harmony, is thrown into confusion by discord, suffering and sin.
COMMUNION -- SEE CHRISTIANITY
- OG Consciousness -- In all its forms and protean manifestations, consciousness is spirit-matter -- force and matter, or spirit and substance, are one -- hence consciousness is the finest and loftiest form of energy, is the root of all things, and is coextensive with kosmic space. It is, therefore, the foundation and the essence of gods, of monads, and of atoms -- the three generalized degrees, kosmically speaking, of the universe. A natural corollary from this is that the universe therefore is imbodied consciousness, or much more correctly we should call it a quasi-infinite aggregate of imbodied consciousnesses.
- TG Continents. In the Buddhist cosmogony, according to Gautama Buddha's exoteric doctrine, there are numberless systems of worlds (or Sakwala) all of which are born, mature, decay, and are destroyed periodically. Orientalists translate the teaching about "the four great continents which do not communicate with each other", as meaning that "upon the earth there are four great continents" (see Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 4), while the doctrine means simply that around or above the earth there are on either side four worlds, i.e., the earth appearing as the fourth on each side of the arc.
- PV Copal The sap from various Central American trees which is used by Mayan natives for incense for purificative and other purposes. Equated with blood and rain as a divine substance or exudation in nature.
- TG Corybantes, Mysteries of the. These were held in Phrygia in honour of Atys, the youth beloved by Cybele. The rites were very elaborate within the temple and very noisy and tragic in public. They began by a public bewailing of the death of Atys and ended in tremendous rejoicing at his resurrection. The statue or image of the victim of Jupiter's jealousy was placed during the ceremony in a pastos (coffin), and the priests sang his suffering. Atys, as Visvakarma in India, was a representative of Initiation and Adeptship. He is shown as being born impotent, because chastity is a requisite of the life of an aspirant. Atys is said to have established the rites and worship of Cybele, in Lydia. (See Pausan., vii., c. 17.)
WW Correspondence
We saw that the term [hierarchies] was generally applied to those institutions in human affairs whereby authority is deputed or delegated from higher to lower, and that each step, on the hierarchical theory, required another one above it and another one below it. While we saw that this applied to human affairs, nevertheless we also saw that it was a correspondence, to use Swedenborg's term, of what exists in the cosmos. And if we could get a proper, clear, concise, intelligible view of what hierarchy means in man, or rather, in the affairs of mankind, we have thereby a key by which we may understand the operations that take place in nature -- these operations, being the working of intelligence and will upon matter. This takes place according to what H. P. Blavatsky called the doctrine of analogy. Now analogy itself is a science. There are such things as false analogies in logic, and there are manifestations in nature which one can perceive, see, study, and yet they are not, properly speaking, analogies with some set standard. They are apparent analogies, false analogies. To use our own terms, they are Mayavic, that is, illusionary (from the Sanskrit, Maya, illusion.)
"As it is above, so it is below" is the great Hermetic axiom, which you will find all through our literature. The Kabalists had a similar doctrine, i.e. that in the manifestation of the unnameable Deity -- this manifestation being accomplished through hierarchies of angelical beings, each angel or each entity, or each god as a Greek would say, Deva as a Hindu or Buddhist would say -- each of these entities is impressed as the wax takes the impress of the seal, with the characteristic of its hierarchical head. Therefore, … every series of entities proceeding from a hierarchical head bears the stamp or characteristic of that fountain, that source.
- TG Cosmic Gods. Inferior gods, those connected with the formation of matter.
- TG Cosmic ideation (Occult.). Eternal thoughts impressed on substance or spirit-matter, in the eternity; thought which becomes active at the beginning of every new life-cycle.
- TG Cosmocratores (Gr.). "Builders of the Universe", the "world architects", or the Creative Forces personified.
- OG Cosmos -- Whenever a theosophist speaks of the cosmos or the universe, he by no means refers only to the physical sphere or world or cross section of the boundless All in which we humans live, but more particularly to the invisible worlds and planes and spheres inhabited by their countless hosts of vitalized or animate beings. In order to avoid redundancy of words and often confusing repetitions in the midst of an explanation dealing with other matters, since H. P. Blavatsky's time it has been customary among careful theosophical writers to draw a distinction of fact between cosmos and kosmos. The solar universe or solar system is frequently referred to as cosmos or solar cosmos; and the galactic universe or our own home-universe it has been customary to refer to as the kosmos. This distinction, however, does not always hold, because sometimes in dealing with abstract questions where the application of the thought can be indifferently made either to the galactic or to the solar universe, the two forms of spelling may be used interchangeably. (See also Kosmos, Kosmic Life)
- TG Cow-worship. The idea of any such "worship" is as erroneous as it is unjust. No Egyptian worshipped the cow, nor does any Hindu worship this animal now, though it is true that the cow and bull were sacred then as they are to-day, but only as the natural physical symbol of a metaphysical ideal; even as a church made of bricks and mortar is sacred to the civilized Christian because of its associations and not by reason of its walls. The cow was sacred to Isis, the Universal Mother, Nature, and to the Hathor, the female principle in Nature, the two goddesses being allied to both sun and moon, as the disk and the cow's horns (crescent) prove. (See "Hathor" and "Isis".) In the Vedas, the Dawn of Creation is represented by a cow, This dawn is Hathor, and the day which follows, or Nature already formed, is Isis, for both are one except in the matter of time. Hathor the elder is "the mistress of the seven mystical cows" and Isis, "the Divine Mother", is the "cow-horned", the cow of Plenty (or Nature, Earth), and, as the mother of Horns (the physical world) -- the "mother of all that lives". The outa was the symbolic eye of Horns, the right being the sun, and the left the moon. The right "eye" of Horus was called "the cow of Hathor", and served as a powerful amulet, as the dove in a nest of rays or glory, with or without the cross, is a talisman with Christians, Latins and Greeks. The Bull and the Lion which we often find in company with Luke and Mark in the frontispiece of their respective Gospels in the Greek and Latin texts, are explained as symbols -- which is indeed the fact. Why not admit the same in the case of the Egyptian sacred Bulls, Cows, Rams, and Birds?
- TG Cremer, John. An eminent scholar who for over thirty years studied Hermetic philosophy in pursuance of its practical secrets, while he was at the same time Abbot of Westminster. While on a voyage to Italy, he met the famous Raymond Lully whom he induced to return with him to England. Lully divulged to Cremer the secrets of the stone, for which service the monastery offered daily prayers for him. Crenier, says the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, "having obtained a profound knowledge of the secrets of Alchemy, became a most celebrated and learned adept in occult philosophy lived to a good old age, and died in the reign of King Edward III."
- TG Crescent. Sin was the Assyrian name for the moon, and Sin-ai the Mount, the birth-place of Osiris, of Dionysos, Bacchus and several other gods. According to Rawlinson, the moon was held in higher esteem than the sun at Babylon, because darkness preceded light. The crescent was, therefore, a sacred symbol with almost every nation, before it became the standard of the Turks. Says the author of Egyptian Belief, "The crescent . . . . . . is not essentially a Mahometan ensign. On the contrary, it was a Christian one, derived through Asia from the Babylonian Astarte, Queen of Heaven, or from the Egyptian Isis . . . . whose emblem was the crescent. The Greek Christian Empire of Constantinople held it as their palladium Upon the conquest of the Turks, the Mahometan Sultan adopted it for the symbol of his power. Since that time the crescent has been made to oppose the idea of the cross."
- TG Criocephale (Gr.). Ram-headed, applied to several deities and emblematic figures, notably those of ancient Egypt, which were designed about the period when the Sun passed, at the Vernal Equinox, from the sign Taurus to the sign Aries. Previously to this period, bull-headed and horned deities prevailed. Apis was the type of the Bull deity, Ammon that of the ram-headed type: Isis, too, had a Cow's head allotted to her. Porphyry writes that the Greeks united the Ram to Jupiter and the Bull to Bacchus. [w.w.w.]
- TG Crocodile. "The great reptile of Typhon." The seat of its worship "was Crocodilopolis and it was sacred to Set and Sebak -- its alleged creators. The primitive Rishis in India, the Manus, and Sons of Brahma, are each the progenitors of some animal species, of which he is the alleged "father"; in Egypt, each god was credited with the formation or creation of certain animals which were sacred to him. Crocodiles must have been numerous in Egypt during the early dynasties, if one has to judge by the almost incalculable number of their mummies. Thousands upon thousands have been excavated from the grottoes of Moabdeh, and many a vast necropolis of that Typhonic animal is still left untouched. But the Crocodile was only worshipped where his god and "father" received honours. Typhon (q.v.) had once received such honours and, as Bunsen shows, had been considered a great god. His words are, "Down to the time of Ramses B.C. 1300, Typhon was one of the most venerated and powerful gods, a god who pours blessings and life on the rulers of Egypt." As explained elsewhere, Typhon is the material aspect of Osiris. When Typhon, the Quaternary, kills Osiris, the triad or divine Light, and cuts it metaphorically into 14 pieces, and separates himself from the "god", he incurs the execration of the masses; he becomes the evil god, the storm and hurricane god, the burning sand of the Desert, the constant enermy of the Nile, and the "slayer of the evening beneficent dew", because Osiris s the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying Siva. This is why the crocodile is also partly venerated and partly execrated. The appearance of the crocodile in the Desert, far from the water, prognosticated the happy event of the coming inundation -- hence its adoration at Thebes and Ombos. But he destroyed thousands of human and animal beings yearly -- hence also the hatred and persecution of the Crocodile at Elephantine and Tentyra.
- WG Crore, 10,000,000.
- IN Crore Ten million.
- TG Cross. Mariette Bey has shown its antiquity in Egypt by proving that in all the primitive sepulchres "the plan of the chamber has the form of a cross'. It is the symbol of the Brotherhood of races and men; and was laid on the breast of the corpses in Egypt, as it is now placed on the corpses of deceased Christians, and, in its Swastica form (croix cramponnee), on the hearts of the Buddhist adepts and Buddhas. (See "Calvary Cross".)
- SEE JESUS, CHRISTIANITY
CRUCIFIXION -- SEE CHRISTIANITY
- TG Crux Ansata (Lat.). The handled cross, [[symbol shaped like a T sans serif with equal length lines]]; whereas the tau is T [[same as last]], in this form, and the oldest Egyptian cross or the tat is thus +. The crux ansata was the symbol of immortality, but the tat-cross was that of spirit-matter and had the significance of a sexual emblem. The crux ansata was the foremost symbol in the Egyptian Masonry instituted by Count Cagliostro; and Masons just have indeed forgotten the primitive significance of their highest symbols, if some of their authorities still insist that the crux ansata is only a combination of the cteis (or yoni) and phallus (or lingham). Far from this. The handle or ansa had a double significance, but never a phallic one; as an attribute of Isis it was the mundane circle; as a symbol of law on the breast of a munnny it was that of immortality, of an endless and beginningless eternity, that which descends upon and grows out of the plane of material nature, the horizontal feminine line, surmounting the vertical male line -- the fructifying male principle in nature or spirit. Without the handle the crux ansata became the tau T [[same as last description]], which, left by itself, is an androgyne symbol, and becomes purely phallic or sexual only when it takes the shape +.
- WG Crux Ansata (Latin), the ansated cross. (See Svastika.)
- TG Crypt (Gr.). A secret subterranean vault, some for the purpose of initiation, others for burial purposes. There were crypts under every temple in antiquity. There was one on the Mount of Olives, lined with red stucco, and built before the advent of the Jews.
- PV Culebra Spanish, "snake," a pejorative term for the Seven Came, their hellish nahuals, and the brujos or black magicians who represent them on earth (see Sierpe).
- TG Curetes. The Priest-Initiates of ancient Crete, in the service of Cybele. Initiation in their temples was very severe; it lasted twenty-seven days, during which time the aspirant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing terrible trials. Pythagoras was initiated into these rites and came out victorious.
- TG Cutha. An ancient city in Babylonia after which a tablet giving an account of "creation" is named. The "Cutha tablet" speaks of a "temple of Sittam", in the sanctuary of Nergal, the "giant king of war, lord of the city of Cutha", and is purely esoteric. It has to be read symbolically, if at all.
- CYCLES
- For a fuller description of this topic by articles, excerpts, and possibly further links; hyperlink to the Cycles section of this site.
- TG Cycle. From the Greek kuklos. The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or the end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle, referring to the ethnological change of races, lasting 120,000 years, and the cycle of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods -- a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.
- KT Cycle (Gr.) KUKLOS. The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods -- a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.
- WGa Cycle, a ring or turn, from the Greek Kuklos; more properly a spiral; a day and night are a cycle; a year is another. The returning again of any time or any impression. The subject of cycles is of the greatest importance, as it includes all history and all evolution. The best known large cycle is the sidereal, a little over 25,000 years.
- OG Cycles or Law of Cycles -- An exceedingly interesting branch of theosophical study, and one dealing with a fact which is so obviously manifest in the worlds surrounding us that its existence can hardly be denied, except by the willfully blind, is what may be called the law of cycles, or nature's repetitive operations.
- We find nature repeating herself everywhere, although such repetition of course is not merely a running in the same old ruts on each recurrence of the cyclic activity; for each recurrence is of course the expression of a modification, more or less great, of what has preceded. Day succeeds night, winter succeeds summer, the planets circulate around the suns in regular and periodical courses; and these are but familiar examples of cyclical activity.
- Cycles in nature show the time periods of periodic recurrence along and in which any evolving entity or thing expresses the energies and powers which are itself, so that cycles and evolution are like the two sides of a coin: the one shows the time periods or cycles, and the other side manifests the energic or substantial qualities appearing in manifestation according to these cyclical time-periods; but back of this apparently double but actually single process always lie profound karmic causes.
- SEE CIRCLE
- TG Cynocephalus (Gr.). The Egyptian Hapi. There was a notable difference between the ape-headed gods and the "Cynocephalus" (Simia hamadryas), a dog-headed baboon from upper Egypt. The latter, whose sacred city was Hermopolis, was sacred to the lunar deities and Thoth-Hermes, hence an emblem of secret wisdom-as was Hanuman, the monkey-god of India, and later, the elephant-headed Ganesha. The mission of the Cynocephalus was to show the way for the Dead to the Seat of Judgment and Osiris, whereas the ape-gods were all phallic. They are almost invariably found in a crouching posture, holding on one hand the outa (the eye of Horus), and in the other the sexual cross. Isis is seen sometimes riding on an ape, to designate the fall of divine nature into generation.
- 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