Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
1831
- 1891
THE
THEOSOPHICAL
GLOSSARY
BY
H.
P. BLAVATSKY
First
Published 1892
B
—The second letter in almost all the
alphabets, also the second in the Hebrew. Its symbol is a house, the
form of Beth, the letter itself indicating a dwelling, a shed or a
shelter. “As a compound of a root, it is constantly used for the purpose of
showing that it had to do with stone; when stones at Beth-el are set up, for
instance. The Hebrew value as a numeral is two. Joined with its predecessor, it
forms the word Ab, the root of ‘father’, Master, one in authority, and it has
the Kabalistical distinction of being the first letter in the Sacred Volume of
the Law. The divine name connected with this letter is "Bakhour."
(R. M. [Cyclop.]
Baal
(Chald. Heb.). Baal or Adon
(Adonai) was a phallic god. “Who shall ascend unto the hill (the high place) of
the Lord; who shall stand in the place of his Kadushu (q.v.) ? ” (Psalms
XX1V. 3.) The “circle dance” performed by King David round the ark, was the
dance prescribed by the Amazons in the Mysteries, the dance of the daughters of
Shiloh (Judges xxi., et seq.) and the same as the leaping of the
prophets of Baal (I. Kings xviii). He was named Baal-Tzephon, or
god of the crypt (Exodus) and Seth, or the pillar (phallus),
because he was the same as Ammon (or Baal-Hammon) of
Babil
Mound (Chald. Heb.). The site of the
Bacchus
(Gr.). Exoterically and superficially the god of wine and
the vintage, and of licentiousness and joy; but the esoteric meaning of this personification
is more abstruse and philosophical. He is the Osiris of Egypt, and his life and
significance belong to the same group as the other solar deities, all
“sin-bearing,” killed and resurrected; e.g., as Dionysos or Atys of Phrygia
(Adonis, or the Syrian Tammuz), as Ausonius, Baldur (q.v.), &c., &c.
All these were put to death, mourned for, and restored to life. The rejoicings
for Atys took place at the Hilaria on the “pagan” Easter, March
15. Ausonius, a form of Bacchus, was slain “at the vernal equinox, March
21st, and rose in three days”. Tammuz, the double of Adonis and Atys, was
mourned by the women at the “grove” of his name “over
Bacon,
Roger. A Franciscan monk, famous as
an adept in Alchemy and Magic Arts. Lived in the thirteenth
century in
Baddha
(Sk.). Bound, conditioned; as
is every mortal who has not made himself free through Nirvâna.
Bagavadam
(Sk.). A Tamil Scripture on
Astronomy and other matters.
Bagh-bog
(Slavon.). “God”; a Slavonian
name for the Greek Bacchus, whose name became the prototype of the name God or Bagh
and bog or bogh; the Russian for God.
Bahak-Zivo
(Gn.). The “father of the
Genii” in the Codex Nazarśus. The Nazarenes were an early semi-Christian sect.
Bal
(Heb.). Commonly translated
“Lord”, but also Bel, the Chaldean god, and Baal, an "idol".
Bala
(Sk.), or Panchabalâni.
The “five powers” to be acquired in Yoga practice; full trust or faith; energy
; memory; meditation ; wisdom.
Baldur
(Scand.). The “Giver of all Good”. The bright God who is
“the best and all mankind are loud in his praise; so fair and dazzling is he in
form and features, that rays of light seem to issue from him (Edda).
Such was the birth-song chanted to Baldur who resurrects as Wali, the spring
Sun. Baldur is called the “well-beloved”, the “Holy one”, “who alone is without
sin”. He is the “God of Goodness”, who
“shall be born again, when a new and purer world will have arisen from the
ashes of the old, sin-laden world (Asgard)”. He is killed by the crafty Loki,
because Frigga, the mother of the gods, “while entreating all creatures and all
lifeless things to swear that they will not injure the well-beloved”, forgets
to mention “the weak mistletoe bough”, just as the mother of Achilles forgot
her son’s heel. A dart is made of it by Loki and he places it in the hands of
blind Hödur who kills with it the sunny-hearted god of light. The Christmas
misletoe is probably a reminiscence of the mistletoe that killed the Northern
God of Goodness.
Bal-ilu
(Chal.). One of the many
titles of the Sun.
Bamboo
Books. Most ancient and certainly
pre-historic works in Chinese containing the antediluvian records of the Annals
of China. They were found in the tomb of King Seang of Wai, who died 295
B.C., and claim to go back many centuries.
Bandha
(Sk.). Bondage; life on this
earth; from the same root as Baddha.
Baphomet
(Gr.). The androgyne goat of
Mendes. (See Secret Doctrine, I. 253). According to the Western, and
especially the French Kabalists, the Templars were accused of worshipping
Baphomet, and Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, with all his
brother-Masons, suffered death in consequence. But esoterically, and
philologically, the word never meant “goat”, nor even anything so objective as
an idol. The term means according to Von Hammer, “baptism” or initiation
into Wisdom, from the Greek words bafh and mhtiz and from the relation
of Baphometus to Pan. Von Hammer must be right. It was a Hermetico Kabalistic
symbol, but the whole story as invented by the Clergy was false.
(See “Pan ”.)
Baptism
(Gr.). The rite of
purification performed during the ceremony of initiation in the sacred tanks of
India, and also the later identical rite established by John “the Baptist” and
practised by his disciples and followers, who were not Christians. This rite
was hoary with age when it was adopted by the Chrestians of the earliest
centuries. Baptism belonged to the earliest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy; was
religiously practised in the nocturnal ceremonies in the Pyramids where we see
to this day the font in the shape of the sarcophagus; was known to take place
during the Eleusinian mysteries in the sacred temple lakes, and is practised
even now by the descendants of the ancient Sabians. The Mendćans (the El
Mogtasila of the Arabs) are, notwithstanding their deceptive name of
“St. John Christians”, less Christians than are the Orthodox Mussulman Arabs
around them. They are pure Sabians; and this is very naturally explained when
one remembers that the great Semitic scholar Renan has shown in his Vie de
Jésus that the Aramean verb seba, the origin of the name Sabian,
is a synonym of the Greek baptizw. The modern Sabians, the Mendćans whose
vigils and religious rites, face to face with the silent stars, have been
described by several travellers, have still preserved the theurgic, baptismal
rites of their distant and nigh-for gotten forefathers, the Chaldean Initiates.
Their religion is one of multiplied baptisms, of seven purifications in the
name of the seven planetary rulers, the “seven Angels of the Presence” of the
Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant Baptists are but the pale imitators of
the El Mogtasila or Nazareans who practise their Gnostic rites in
the deserts of Asia Minor. (See “Boodhasp”.)
Bardesanes
or Bardaisan. A Syrian
Gnostic, erroneously regarded as a Christian theologian, born at Edessa (Edessene
Chronicle) in 155 of our era (Assemani Bibl.. Orient. i. 389). He
was a great astrologer following the Eastern Occult System. According to
Porphyry (who calls him the Babylonian, probably on account of his Chaldeeism
or astrology), “Bardesanes . . . . held intercourse with the Indians that had
been sent to the Cćsar with Damadamis at their head” (De Abst. iv. 17),
and had his information from the Indian gymnosophists. The fact is that most of
his teachings, however much they may have been altered by his numerous Gnostic
followers, can be traced to Indian philosophy, and still more to the Occult
teachings of the Secret System. Thus in his Hymns he speaks of the creative
Deity as “Father-Mother”, and elsewhere of “Astral Destiny” (Karma) of “Minds
of Fire” (the Agni-Devas) &c. He connected the Soul (the personal
Manas) with the Seven Stars, deriving its origin from the Higher Beings
(the divine Ego); and therefore “admitted spiritual resurrection but denied the
resurrection of the body”, as charged with by the Church Fathers. Ephraim shows
him preaching the signs of the Zodiac, the importance of the birth-hours and
“proclaiming the seven”. Calling the Sun the “Father of Life” and the Moon the
“Mother of Life”, he shows the latter “laying aside her garment of light
(principles) for the renewal of the Earth”. Photius cannot understand how,
while accepting “the Soul free from the power of genesis (destiny of birth)”
and possessing free will, he still placed the body under the rule of birth
(genesis). For “they (the Bardesanists) say, that wealth and poverty and
sickness and health and death and all things not within our control are works
of destiny” (Bibl. Cod. 223, p.221—f). This is Karma, most
evidently, which does not preclude at all free-will. Hippolytus makes him a
representative of the Eastern School. Speaking of Baptism, Bardesanes is made
to say (loc. cit. pp. 985-ff “It is not however the Bath alone which
makes us free, but the Knowledge of who we are, what we are become, where we
were before, whither we are hastening, whence we are redeemed; what is generation
(birth), what is re-generation (re.birth)”. This points plainly to the doctrine
of re-incarnation. His conversation (Dialogue) with Awida and Barjamina
on Destiny and Free Will shows it. “What is called Destiny, is an order of
outflow given to the Rulers (Gods) and the Elements, according to which order
the Intelligences (Spirit-Egos) are changed by their descent into the Soul, and
the Soul by its descent into the body”. (See Treatise, found in its Syriac
original, and published with English translation in 1855 by Dr. Cureton, Spicileg.
Syriac. in British Museum.)
Bardesanian
(System). The “Codex of the
Nazarenes”, a system worked out by one Bardesanes. It is called by some a
Kabala within the Kabala; a religion or sect the esotericism of which is given
out in names and allegories entirely sui-generis. A very old Gnostic
system. This codex has been translated into Latin. Whether it is right to call
the Sabeanism of the Mendaїtes (miscalled St. John’s Christians),
contained in the Nazarene Codex, “the Bardesanian system”, as some do, is
doubtful; for the doctrines of the Codex and the names of the Good and Evil
Powers therein, are older than Bardaisan. Yet the names are identical in the
two systems.
Baresma
(Zend). A plant used by Mobeds (Parsi priests) in
the fire- temples, wherein consecrated bundles of it are kept.
Barhishad (Sk.). A class of the “lunar” Pitris or
“Ancestors”, Fathers, who are believed in popular superstition to have kept up
in their past incarnations the household sacred flame and made fire-offerings.
Esoterically the Pitris who evolved their shadows or chhayas to make
there-with the first man. (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. II.)
Basileus
(Gr.). The Archon or Chief who
had the outer super-vision during the Eleusinian Mysteries. While the latter
was an initiated layman, and magistrate at Athens, the Basileus of the
inner Temple was of the staff of the great Hierophant, and as such was one
of the chief Mystć and belonged to the inner mysteries.
Basilidean
(System). Named after Basilides;
the Founder of one of the most philosophical gnostic sects. Clement the
Alexandrian speaks of Basilides, the Gnostic, as “a philosopher devoted to the
contemplation of divine things”. While he claimed that he had all his doctrines
from the Apostle Matthew and from Peter through Glaucus, Irenaeus reviled him,
Tertullian stormed at him, and the Church Fathers had not sufficient words of
obloquy against the “heretic”. And yet on the authority of St. Jerome himself,
who describes with indignation what he had found in the only genuine Hebrew
copy of the Gospel of Matthew (See Isis Unv., ii., 181) which he got
from the Nazarenes, the statement of Basilides becomes more than credible, and
if accepted would solve a great and perplexing problem. His 24 vols. of
Interpretation of the Gospels, were, as Eusebius tells us, burnt.
Useless to say that these gospels were not our present Gospels. Thus,
truth was ever crushed.
Bassantin, James. A Scotch astrologer. He lived in the 16th
century and is said to have predicted to Sir Robert Melville, in 1562, the
death and all the events connected therewith of Mary, the unfortunate Queen of
Scots.
Bath (Heb.). Daughter.
Bath
Kol (Heb.). Daughter of the
Voice: the Divine afflatus, or inspiration, by which the prophets of Israel
were inspired as by a voice from Heaven and the Mercy-Seat. In Latin Filia
Vocis. An analogous ideal is found in Hindu exoteric theology named Vâch,
the voice, the female essence, an aspect of Aditi, the mother of the gods and
primćval Light; a mystery. [ w.w.w.]
Batoo (Eg.). The first man in Egyptian folk-lore.
Noum, the heavenly artist, creates a beautiful girl—the original of the
Grecian Pandora—and sends her to Batoo, after which the happiness of the first
man is destroyed.
Batria
(Eg.). According to tradition,
the wife of the Pharaoh and the teacher of Moses.
Beel-Zebub (Heb.). The disfigured Baal of the
Temples. and more correctly Beel-Zebul. Beel-Zebub means -literally “god of
flies” ; the derisory epithet used by the Jews, and the incorrect and confused
rendering of the “god of the sacred scarabći”, the divinities watching the
mummies, and symbols of transformation, regeneration and immortality.
Beel-Zeboul means properly the “ God of the Dwelling:’ and is spoken of in this
sense in Matthew x. 25. As Apollo, originally not a Greek but a
Phenician god, was the healing god, Paiŕn, or physician, as well as the god of
oracles, he became gradually transformed as such into the “Lord of Dwelling”, a
household deity, and thus was called Beel-Zeboul. He was also, in a sense, a
psychopompic god, taking care of the souls as did Anubis. Beelzebub was always
the oracle god, and was only confused and identified with Apollo latter on.
Bel (Chald.). The oldest and mightiest god of
Babylonia, one of the earliest trinities,—Anu (q.v.) ; Bel,
“Lord of the World”, father of the gods, Creator, and “Lord of the City of
Nipur’; and Hea, maker of fate, Lord of the Deep, God of Wisdom and esoteric
Knowledge, and “Lord of the city of Eridu”. The wife of Bel, or his female
aspect (Sakti), was Belat, or Beltis, “the mother of the great gods”,
and the “Lady of the city of Nipur”. The original Bel was also called Enu, Elu
and Kaptu (see Chaldean account of Genesis, by G. Smith). His eldest son
was the Moon God Sin (whose names were also Ur, Agu and Itu), who was the
presiding deity of the city of Ur, called in his honour by one of his names.
Now Ur was the place of nativity of Abram (see “Astrology”). In the early
Babylonian religion the Moon was, like Soma in India, a male, and the
Sun a female deity. And this led almost every nation to great fratricidal wars
between the lunar and the solar worshippers—e.g., the contests between the
Lunar and the Solar
Dynasties, the Chandra and Suryavansa in ancient Aryavarta. Thus we find the
same on a smaller scale between the Semitic tribes. Abram and his father Terah
are shown migrating from Ur and carrying their lunar god (or its scion) with
them ; for Jehovah Elohim or El—another form of Elu—has ever been connected with
the moon. It is the Jewish lunar chronology which has led the European
“civilized” nations into the greatest blunders and mistakes. Merodach, the son
of Hea, became the later Bel and was worshipped at Babylon. His other title,
Belas, has a number of symbolical meanings.
Bela-Shemesh
(Chald. Heb.). “The Lord of
the Sun”, the name of the Moon during that period when the Jews became in turn
solar and lunar worshippers, and when the Moon was a male, and the Sun a female
deity. This period embraced the time between the allegorical expulsion of Adam
and Eve from Eden down to the no less allegorical Noachian flood. (See Secret
Doctrine, I. 397.)
Bembo, Tablet of; or Mensa Isiaca. A brazen tablet
inlaid with designs in Mosaic (now in the Museum at Turin) which once belonged
to the famous Cardinal Bembo. Its origin and date are unknown. It is covered
with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics, and is supposed to have been an
ornament in an ancient Temple of Isis. The learned Jesuit Kircher wrote a
description of it, and Montfaucon has a chapter devoted to it.
[ w.w.w.]
The
only English work on the Isiac Tablet is by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, who gives a
photogravure in addition to its history, description, and occult significance.
Ben
(Heb.). A son; a common prefix
in proper names to denote the son of so-and-so, e.g., Ben Solomon, Ben Ishmael,
etc.
Be-ness. A term coined by Theosophists to render more
accurately the essential meaning of the untranslatable word Sat. The latter
word does not mean “Being” for it presupposes a sentient feeling or some
consciousness of existence. But, as the term Sat is applied solely to the
absolute Principle, the universal, unknown, and ever unknowable Presence, which
philosophical Pantheism postulates in Kosmos, calling it the basic root of
Kosmos. and Kosmos itself— “Being” was no fit word to express it. Indeed, the
latter is not even, as translated by some Orientalists, “the incomprehensible
Entity”; for it is no more an Entity than a non-Entity, but both. It is, as
said, absolute Be-ness, not Being, the one secondless, undivided,
and indivisible All—the root of all Nature visible and invisible, objective and
subjective, to be sensed by the highest spiritual intuition, but’ never to be
fully comprehended.
Ben
Shamesh (Heb.). The children
or the “Sons of the Sun”. The term belongs to the period when the Jews were
divided into sun and moon worshippers—Elites and Belites. (See “Bela-
Shemesh”.)
Benoo
(Eg.). A word applied to two
symbols, both taken to mean “Phśnix”. One was the Shen-shen (the heron),
and the other a nondescript bird, called the Rech (the red one), and
both were sacred to Osiris. It was the latter that was the regular Phśnix of
the great Mysteries, the typical symbol of self-creation and resurrection
through death—a type of the Solar Osiris and of the divine Ego in man. Yet both
the Heron and the Rech were symbols of cycles; the former, of the Solar year of
365 days; the latter of the tropical year or a period covering almost 26,000
years. In both cases the cycles were the types of the return of light from
darkness, the yearly and great cyclic return of the sun-god to his birth-place,
or—his Resurrection. The Rech-Benoo is described by Macrobius as living 660
years and then dying; while others stretched its life as long as 1,460 years.
Pliny, the Naturalist, describes the Rech as a large bird with gold and purple
wings, and a long blue tail. As every reader is aware, the Phśnix on feeling
its end approaching, according to tradition, builds for itself a funeral pile on
the top of the sacrificial altar, and then proceeds to consume himself thereon
as a burnt-offering. Then a worm appears in the ashes, which grows and
developes rapidly into a new Phśnix, resurrected from the ashes of its
predecessor.
Berasit
(Heb.). The first word of the
book of Genesis. The English established version translates this as “In the
beginning,” but this rendering is disputed by many scholars. Tertullian
approved of “In power”; Grotius “When first”; but the authors of the Targum
of Jerusalern, who ought to have known Hebrew if anyone did, translated it
“In Wisdom”. Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, insists on Berasit being the
sign of the ablative case, meaning “in” and ras, rasit, an ancient word
for Chokmah, “wisdom”. Berasit or Berasheth is a mystic word among the
Kabbalists of Asia Minor.
Bergelmir
(Scand.). The one giant who
escaped in a boat the general slaughter of his brothers, the giant Ymir’s
children, drowned in the blood of their raging Father. He is the Scandinavian
Noah, as he, too, becomes the father of giants after the Deluge. The lays of
the Norsemen show the grandsons of the divine Bun—Odin, Wili, and We—
conquering and killing the terrible giant Ymir, and creating the world out of
his body.
Berosus
(Chald.). A priest of the Temple of Belus who wrote for
Alexander the Great the history of the Cosmogony, as taught in the Temples,
from the astronomical and chronological records preserved in that temple. The
fragments we have in the soi-disant translations of Eusebius are certainly
as untrustworthy as the biographer of the Emperor Constantine—of whom he made a
saint (!!)—could make them. The only guide to this Cosmogony may now be found
in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets, evidently copied almost bodily from
the earlier Babylonian records; which, say what the Orientalists may, are
undeniably the originals of the Mosaic Genesis, of the Flood, the tower of
Babel, of baby Moses set afloat on the waters, and of other events. For, if the
fragments from the Cosmogony of Berosus, so carefully re-edited and probably
mutilated and added to by Eusebius, are no great proof of the antiquity of
these records in Babylonia—seeing that this priest of Belus lived three hundred
years after the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and they may have been
borrowed by the Assyrians from them—later discoveries have made such a
consoling hypothesis impossible. It is now fully ascertained by Oriental
scholars that not only “Assyria borrowed its civilization and written
characters from Babylonia,” but the Assyrians copied their literature from
Babylonian sources. Moreover, in his first Hibbert lecture, Professor Sayce
shows the culture both of Babylonia itself and of the city of Eridu to have
been of foreign importation; and, according to this scholar, the city of
Eridu stood already “6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian gulf,” i.e.,
about the very time when Genesis shows the Elohim creating the world, sun, and
stars out of nothing.
Bes
(Eg.). A phallic god, the god
of concupiscence and pleasure. He is represented standing on a lotus ready to
devour his own progeny (Abydos). A rather modern deity of foreign origin.
Bestla
(Scand.). The daughter of the
“Frost giants”, the sons of Ymir; married to Bun, and the mother of Odin and
his brothers (Edda).
Beth
(Heb.). House, dwelling.
Beth
Elohim (Heb.). A Kabbalistic
treatise treating of the angels, souls of men, and demons. The name means
“House of the Gods".
Betyles
(Phśn.). Magical stones. The
ancient writers call them the “animated stones” ; oracular stones, believed in
and used both by Gentiles and Christians. (See S.D. II. p. 342).
Bhadra
Vihara (Sk.). Lit., “the
Monastery of the Sages or Bodhisattvas”. A certain Vihara or Matham
in Kanyâkubdja.
Bhadrakalpa
(Sk.). Lit., “The Kalpa of the
Sages”. Our present period is a Bhadra Kalpa, and the exoteric teaching makes
it last 236 million years. It is “so called because 1,000 Buddhas or sages
appear in the course of it”. (Sanshrit Chinese Dict.) “Four Buddhas have
already appeared” it adds; but as out of the 236 millions, over 151 million
years have already elapsed, it does seem a rather uneven distribution of
Buddhas. This is the way exoteric or popular religions confuse everything.
Esoteric philosophy teaches us that every Root- race has its chief Buddha or
Reformer, who appears also in the seven sub-races as a Bodhisattva (q.v.).
Gautama Sakyamuni was the fourth, and also the fifth Buddha: the fifth, because
we are the fifth root-race; the fourth, as the chief Buddha in this fourth
Round. The Bhadra Kalpa, or the “period of stability”, is the name of our
present Round, esoterically—its duration applying, of course, only to our globe
(D), the “1,000” Buddhas being thus in reality limited to but forty-nine in
all.
Bhadrasena
(Sk.). A Buddhist king of Magadha.
Bhagats (Sk.). Also called Sokha and Sivnath
by the Hindus; one who exorcises evil spirits.
Bhagavad-gita (Sk.). Lit., “the Lord’s Song”. A portion of
the Mahabharata, the great epic poem of India. It contains a dialogue wherein
Krishna—the “Charioteer”—and Arjuna, his Chela, have a discussion upon the
highest spiritual philosophy. The work is pre-eminently occult or esoteric.
Bhagavat
(Sk.). A title of the Buddha
and of Krishna. “The Lord” literally.
Bhao
(Sk.). A ceremony of divination among the Kolarian tribes
of Central India.
Bhârata
Varsha (Sk.). The land of
Bharata, an ancient name of India.
Bhargavas (Sk.). An ancient race in India; from the name
of Bhrigu, the Rishi.
Bhâshya
(Sk) A commentary.
Bhâskara
(Sk). One of the titles of
Surya, the Sun; meaning “life- giver” and “light-maker”.
Bhava
(Sk.). Being, or state of
being; the world, a birth, and also a name of Siva.
Bhikshu
(Sk.). In Pâli Bihkhu.
The name given to the first followers of Sâkyamuni Buddha. Lit., “mendicant
scholar”. The Sanskrit Chinese Dictionary explains the term correctly by
dividing Bhikshus into two classes of Sramanas (Buddhist monks and
priests), viz., “esoteric mendicants who control their nature by the
(religious) law, and exoteric mendicants who control their nature by diet;”
and it adds, less correctly: “every true Bhikshu is supposed to work miracles”.
Bhons
(Tib.). The followers of the
old religion of the Aborigines of Tibet; of pre-buddhistic temples and ritualism;
the same as Dugpas, “red caps”, though the latter appellation usually applies
only to sorcerers.
Bhrantidarsanatah
(Sk.). Lit., “false
comprehension or apprehension”; something conceived of on false appearances as
a mayavic, illusionary form.
Bhrigu
(Sk.). One of the great Vedic
Rishis. He is called “Son” by Manu, who confides to him his Institutes.
He is one of the Seven Prajâpatis or progenitors of mankind, which is
equivalent to identifying him with one of the creative gods, placed by the Purânas
in Krita Yug, or the first age, that of purity. Dr. Wynn Westcott reminds us of
the fact that the late and very erudite Dr. Kenealy (who spelt the name Brighoo),
made of this Muni (Saint) the fourth, out of his twelve, “divine messengers” to
the World, adding that he appeared in Tibet, A.N. 4800 and that his religion
spread to Britain, where his followers raised the megalithic temple of
Stonehenge. This, of course, is a hypothesis, based merely on Dr. Kenealy’s
personal speculations.
Bhűmi
(Sk.). The earth, called also
Prithivî.
Bhur-Bhuva (Sk). A mystic incantation, as Om, Bhur,
Bhuva, Swar, meaning “Om, earth, sky, heaven, This is the exoteric
explanation.
Bhuranyu
(Sk.). “The rapid” or the
swift. Used of a missile— an equivalent also of the Greek Phoroneus.
Bhur-loka
(Sk). One of the 14, lokas or worlds in Hindu Pantheism;
our Earth.
Bhutadi
(Sk.). Elementary substances,
the origin and the germinal essence of the elements.
Bhutan. A country of heretical Buddhists and Lamaists beyond
Sikkhim, where rules the Dharma Raja, a nominal vassal of the Dalaї Lama.
Bhűhta-vidyâ
(Sk.). The art of exorcising,
of treating and curing demoniac possession. Literally, “Demon” or “Ghost-knowledge”.
Bhűta-sarga
(Sk.). Elemental or incipient Creation, i.e., when matter
was several degrees less material than it is now.
Bhűtesa
(Sk.) Or Bhűteswara; lit., “Lord of beings or of
existent lives”. A name applied to Vishnu, to Brahmâ and Krishna.
Bhűts (Sk.). Bhűta.: Ghosts, phantoms. To call them
“demons”, as do the Orientalists, is incorrect. For, if on the one hand, a
Bhűta is “a malignant spirit which haunts cemeteries, lurks in trees, animates
dead bodies, and deludes and devours human beings”, in popular fancy, in India
in Tibet and China, by Bhűtas are also meant “heretics” who besmear their
bodies with ashes, or Shaiva ascetics (Siva being held in India for the King of
Bhűtas).
Bhuya-loka
(Sk.). One of the 14 worlds.
Bhuvana
(Sk). A name of Rudra or Siva,
one of the Indian Trimurti (Trinity).
Bifröst
(Scand.). A bridge built by
the gods to protect Asgard. On it “the third Sword-god, known as Heimdal or
Riger”, stands night and day girded with his sword, for he is the watchman selected
to protect Asgard, the abode of gods. Heimdal is the Scandinavian Cherubim with
the flaming sword, “which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life”.
Bihar
Gyalpo (Tib.). A king deified
by the Dugpas. A patron over all their religious buildings.
Binah (Heb.). Understanding. The third of the 10
Sephiroth, the third of the Supernal Triad; a female potency, corresponding to
the letter hé of the Tetragrammaton IHVH. Binah is called AIMA, the Supernal Mother, and “the
great Sea”. [ w.w.w.]
Birs
Nimrud (Chald.). Believed by
the Orientalists to be the site of the Tower of Babel. The great pile of Birs
Nimrud is near Babylon. Sir H. Rawlinson and several Assyriologists examined
the excavated ruins and found that the tower consisted of seven stages of
brick-work, each stage of a different colour, which shows that the temple was
devoted to the seven planets. Even with its three higher stages or floors in
ruins, it still rises now 154 feet above the level of the plain. (”See
Borsippa”.)
Black
Dwarfs. The name of the Elves of
Darkness, who creep about in the dark caverns of the earth and fabricate
weapons and utensils for their divine fathers, the Ćsir or Ases. Called also
“Black Elves”.
Black
Fire (Zohar.) A Kabbalistic
term for Absolute Light and Wisdom; “black” because it is incomprehensible to
our finite intellects.
Black
Magic (Occult.). Sorcery;
necromancy, or the raising of the dead, and other selfish abuses of abnormal
powers. This abuse may be unintentional; yet it is still “black magic”
whenever anything is produced phenomenally simply for one’s own gratification.
B’ne
Alhim or Beni Elohim (Heb.).
“Sons of God ”, literally or more correctly “Sons of the gods”, as Elohim is
the plural of Eloah. A group of angelic powers referable by analogy to the
Sephira Hôd.
[w. w. w.]
Boat
of the Sun. This sacred solar boat
was called Sekti, and it was steered by the dead. With the Egyptians the
highest exaltation of the Sun was in Aries and the depression in Libya.
(See “Pharaoh”, the “Son of the Sun”.) A blue light—which is the “Sun’s Son”—is
seen streaming from the bark. The ancient Egyptians taught that the real colour
of the Sun was blue, and Macrobius also states that his colour is of a pure
blue before he reaches the horizon and after he disappears below. It is curious
to note in this relation the fact that it is only since 1881 that physicists
and astronomers discovered that “our Sun is really blue”. Professor Langley
devoted many years to ascertaining the fact. Helped in this by the magnificent
scientific apparatus of physical science, he has succeeded finally in proving
that the apparent yellow-orange colour of the Sun is due only to the effect of
absorption exerted by its atmosphere of vapours, chiefly metallic; but that in
sober truth and reality, it is not “a white Sun but a blue one”, i.e.,
something which the Egyptian priests had discovered without any known
scientific instruments, many thousands of years ago!
Boaz
(Heb.). The great-grandfather
of David. The word is from B, meaning “in”, and oz “strength”, a
symbolic name of one of the pillars at the porch of King Solomon’s temple. [w.
w. w.]
Bodha-Bodhi
(Sk.). Wisdom-knowledge.
Bodhi
or Sambodhi (Sk.).
Receptive intelligence, in contradistinction to Buddhi, which is the
potentiality of intelligence.
Bodhi
Druma (Sk.). The Bo or Bodhi
tree; the tree of “knowledge the Pippala or ficus religiosa in
botany. It is the tree under which Sâkymuni meditated for seven years and then
reached Buddhaship. It was originally 400 feet high, it is claimed; but when
Hiouen-Tsang saw it, about the year 640 of our era, it was only 50 feet high.
Its cuttings have been carried all over the Buddhist world and are planted in
front of almost every Vihâra or temple of fame in China, Siam, Ceylon, and
Tibet.
Bodhidharma
(Sk.). Wisdom-religion; or the
wisdom contained in Dharma (ethics). Also the name of a great Arhat Kshatriya
(one of the warrior-caste), the son of a king. It was Panyatara, his guru, who
“gave him the name Bodhidharma to mark his understanding (bodhi) of the Law
(dharma) of Buddha”. (Chin. San. Diet.). Bodhidharma, who
flourished in the sixth century, travelled to China, whereto he brought a
precious relic, namely, the almsbowl of the Lord Buddha.
Bodhisattva
(Sk). Lit., “he, whose essence
(sattva) has become intelligence (bodhi)”; those who need but one
more incarnation to become perfect Buddhas, i.e., to be entitled to Nirvâna.
This, as applied to Manushi (terrestrial) Buddhas. In the metaphysical
sense, Bodhisattva is a title given to the sons of the celestial
Dhyâni Buddhas.
Bodhyanga
(Sk.). Lit., the seven branches of knowledge or
understanding. One of the 37 categories of the Bodhi pakchika dharma,
comprehending seven degrees of intelligence (esoterically, seven states of
consciousness), and these are (1) Smriti “memory”; (2) Dharma
pravitchaya, “correct understanding” or discrimination of the Law ; (3) Virya,
“energy” ; (4) Priti, “spiritual joy” ; (5 )Prasrabdhi,
“tranquillity” or quietude; (6) Samâdhi, “ecstatic contemplation”; and
(7) Upeksha “absolute indifference”.
Boehme
(Jacob). A great mystic
philosopher, one of the most prominent Theosophists of the medićval ages. He
was born about 1575 at Old Seidenburg, some two miles from Görlitz (Silesia),
and died in 1624, at nearly fifty years of age. In his boyhood he was a common
shepherd, and, after learning to read and write in a village school, became an
apprentice to a poor shoemaker at Görlitz. He was a natural clairvoyant of most
wonderful powers. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works
which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but then, as he says
himself, what he wrote upon, he “saw it as in a great Deep in the Eternal”. He
had “a thorough view of the universe, as in a chaos”, which yet “opened itself
in him, from time to time, as in a young plant”. He was a thorough born Mystic,
and evidently of a constitution which is most rare one of those fine natures
whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional,
intercommunion between the intellectual and the spiritual Ego. It is this Ego
which Jacob Boehme, like so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God; “Man
must acknowledge,” he writes, “that his knowledge is not his own, but from God,
who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man, in what measure he
pleases.” Had this great Theosophist mastered Eastern Occultism he might have
expressed it otherwise. He would have known then that the “god” who spoke
through his poor uncultured and untrained brain, was his own divine Ego, the
omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not in
“what measure pleased,” but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and
temporary dwelling IT informed.
Bonati, Guido. A Franciscan monk, born at Florence in the
XIIIth century and died in 1306. He became an astrologer and alchemist, but
failed as a Rosicrucian adept. He returned after this to his monastery.
Bona-Oma, or Bona Dea. A Roman goddess, the patroness of
female Initiates and Occultists. Called also Fauna after her father Faunus. She
was worshipped as a prophetic and chaste divinity, and her cult was confined
solely to women, men not being allowed to even pronounce her name. She revealed
her oracles only to women, and the ceremonies of her Sanctuary (a grotto in the
Aventine) were conducted by the Vestals, every 1st of May. Her aversion to men
was so great that no male person was permitted to approach the house of the
consuls where her festival was sometimes held, and even the portraits and the
busts of men were carried out for the time from the building. Clodius, who once
profaned such a sacred festival by entering the house of Caesar where it was
held, in a female disguise, brought grief upon himself. Flowers and foliage
decorated her temple and women made libations from a vessel (mellarium) full of
milk. It is not true that the mellarium contained wine, as asserted by some
writers, who being men thus tried to revenge themselves.
Bono, Peter. A Lombardian; a great adept in the Hermetic
Science, who travelled to Persia to study Alchemy. Returning from his voyage he
settled in Istria in 1330, and became famous as a Rosicrucian. A Calabrian monk
named Lacinius is credited with having published in 1702 a condensed version of
Bono’s works on the transmutation of metals. There is, however, more of
Lacinius than of Bono in the work. Bono was a genuine adept and an Initiate ;
and such do not leave their secrets behind them in MSS.
Boodhasp
(Chald.) .An alleged Chaldean;
but in esoteric teaching a Buddhist (a Bodhisattva), from the East, who was the
founder of the esoteric school of Neo-Sabeism, and whose secret rite of baptism
passed bodily into the Christian rite of the same name. For almost three
centuries before our era, Buddhist monks overran the whole country of Syria,
made their way into the Mesopotamian valley and visited even Ireland. The name
Ferho and Faho of the Codex Nazaraeus is but a corruption of Fho, Fo
and Pho, the name which the Chinese, Tibetans and even Nepaulese often give to
Buddha.
Book
of the Dead. An ancient Egyptian
ritualistic and occult work attributed to Thot-Hermes. Found in the coffins of
ancient mummies,
Book
of the Keys. An ancient Kabbalistic
work.
Borj
(Pers.). The Mundane Mountain,
a volcano or fire-mountain; the same as the Indian Meru.
Borri, Joseph Francis. A great Hermetic philosopher, born at
Milan in the 17th century. He was an adept, an alchemist and a devoted
occultist. He knew too much and was, therefore, condemned to death for heresy,
in January, 1661, after the death of Pope Innocent X. He escaped and lived many
years after, when finally he was recognised by a monk in a Turkish village,
denounced, claimed by the Papal Nuncio, taken back to Rome and imprisoned,
August 10th, 1675. But facts show that he escaped from his prison in a way no
one could account for.
Borsippa (Chald.). The planet-tower, wherein Bel was
worshipped in the days when astrolaters were the greatest astronomers.
It was dedicated to Nebo, god of Wisdom. (See “Birs Nimrud ”.)
Both-al
(Irish). The Both-al of the
Irish is the descendant and copy of the Greek Batylos and the Beth-el of
Canaan, the “house of God” (q.v.).
Bragadini, Marco Antonio. A Venetian Rosicrucian of great
achievements, an Occultist and Kabbalist who was decapitated in 1595 in
Bavaria, for making gold.
Bragi
(Scand.). The god of New Life,
of the re-incarnation of nature and man. He is called “the divine singer”
without spot or blemish. He is represented as gliding in the ship of the Dwarfs
of Death during the death of nature (pralaya), lying asleep on the deck with
his golden stringed harp near him and dreaming the dream of life. When the
vessel crosses the threshold of Nain, the Dwarf of Death, Bragi awakes and
sweeping the strings of his harp, sings a song that echoes over all the worlds,
a song describing the rapture of existence, and awakens dumb, sleeping nature
out of her long death-like sleep.
Brahma
(Sk.). The student must
distinguish between Brahma the neuter, and Brahmâ, the male creator of the
Indian Pantheon. The former, Brahma or Brahman, is the impersonal, supreme and
uncognizable Principle of the Universe from the essence of which all emanates,
and into which all returns, which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal,
beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as
well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahmâ on the other hand, the male and the
alleged Creator, exists periodically in his manifestation only, and then again
goes into pralaya, i.e., disappears and is annihilated.
Brahmâ’s
Day. A period of 2,160,000,000 years
during which Brahmâ having emerged out of his golden egg (Hiranyagarbha),
creates and fashions the material world (being simply the fertilizing and
creative force in Nature). After this period, the worlds being destroyed in
turn, by fire and water, he vanishes with objective nature, and then comes
Brahmâ's Night.
Brahmâ’s
Night. A period of equal duration,
during which Brahmâ. is said to be asleep. Upon awakening he recommences the
process, and this goes on for an AGE of Brahmâ composed of alternate “Days”,
and “Nights”, and lasting 100 years (of 2,160,000,000 years each). It requires
fifteen figures to express the duration of such an age; after the expiration of
which the Mahapralaya or the Great Dissolution sets in, and lasts in its
turn for the same space of fifteen figures.
Brahmâ
Prajâpati (Sk.). “Brahmâ the
Progenitor”, literally the “Lord of Creatures”. In this aspect Brahmâ is the
synthesis of the Prajâpati or creative Forces.
Brahmâ
Vâch (Sk.) Male and female
Brahmâ. Vâch is also some-times called the female logos; for Vâch means
Speech, literally. (See Manu Book I., and Vishnu Purâna.)
Brahma
Vidyâ (Sk.) The knowledge, the
esoteric science, about the two Brahmas and their true nature.
Brahmâ
Virâj. (Sk.) The same: Brahmâ
separating his body into two halves, male and female, creates in them Vâch and
Virâj. In plainer terms and esotericlly Brahmâ the Universe,
differentiating, produced thereby material nature, Virâj, and spiritual
intelligent Nature, Vâch—which is the Logos of Deity or the manifested
expression of the eternal divine Ideation.
Brahmâcharî
(Sk.) A Brahman ascetic; one vowed
to celibacy, a monk, virtually, or a religious student.
Brahmajnâni
(Sk.) One possessed of complete Knowledge; an Illuminatus
in esoteric parlance.
Brâhman
(Sk.) The highest of the four
castes in India, one supposed or rather fancying himself, as high among men, as
Brahman, the ABSOLUTE of the Vedantins, is high among, or above the gods.
Brâhmana
period (Sk.) One of the four
periods into which Vedic literature has been divided by Orientalists.
Brâhmanas
(Sk.) Hindu Sacred Books. Works composed by, and for
Brahmans. Commentaries on those portions of the Vedas which were intended for
the ritualistic use and guidance of the “twice-born (Dwija) or Brahmans.
Brahmanaspati
(Sk.). The planet Jupiter; a
deity in the Rig -Veda, known in the exoteric works as Brihaspati, whose
wife Târâ was carried away by Soma (the Moon). This led to a war between the
gods and the Asuras.
Brahmâpuri
(Sk.) Lit., “the City of
Brahmâ.
Brahmâputrâs
(Sk.) The Sons of Brahmâ.
Brahmarandhra
(Sk.) A spot on the crown of
the head connected by Sushumna, a cord in the spinal column, with the
heart. A mystic term having its significance only in mysticism.
Brahmârshîs
(Sk.). The Brahminical Rishis.
Bread
and Wine. Baptism and the Eucharist
have their direct origin in pagan Egypt. There the “waters of purification”
were used (the Mithraic font for baptism being borrowed by the Persians from
the Egyptians) and so were bread and wine. “Wine in the Dionysiak cult, as in
the Christian religion, represents that blood which in different senses is the
life of the world” (Brown, in the Dionysiak Myth). Justin Martyr says,
“In imitation of which the devil did the like in the
Mysteries
of Mithras, for you either know or may know that they also take bread and a
cup of water in the sacrifices of those that are initiated and pronounce
certain words over it”. (See “Holy Water”.)
Briareus
(Gr.) A famous giant in the
Theogony of Hesiod. The son of Cślus and Terra, a monster with 50 heads and 100
arms. He is conspicuous in the wars and battles between the gods.
Briatic
World or Briah (Heb.)
This world is the second of the Four worlds of the Kabbalists and referred to
the highest created “Archangels”, or to Pure Spirits. [ w.w.w.]
Bride. The tenth Sephira, Malkuth, is called by the
Kabbalists the Bride of Microprosopus; she is the final Hé of the
Tetragrammaton ; in a similar manner the Christian Church is called the Bride
of Christ.
[ w.w.w.]
Brihadâranyaka
(Sk.) The name of a Upanishad. One of the sacred
and secret books of the Brahmins; an Aranyaka is a treatise
appended to the Vedas, and considered a subject of special study by those who
have retired to the jungle (forest) for purposes of religious meditation.
Brihaspati
(Sk.) The name of a Deity,
also of a Rishi. It is like wise the name of the planet Jupiter. He is
the personified Guru and priest of the gods in India ; also the symbol of
exoteric ritualism as opposed to esoteric mysticism. Hence the opponent of King
Soma—the moon, but also the sacred juice drunk at initiation—the parent of
Budha, Secret Wisdom.
Briseus
(Gr.) A name given to the god
Bacchus from his nurse, Briso. He had also a temple at Brisa, a promontory of
the isle of Lesbos.
Brothers
of the Shadow. A name given by the
Occultists to Sorcerers, and especially to the Tibetan Dugpas, of whom
there are many in the Bhon sect of the Red Caps (Dugpa). The word is
applied to all practitioners of black or left hand magic.
Bubasté
(Eg.) A city in Egypt which
was sacred to the cats, and where was their principal shrine. Many hundreds of
thousands of cats were embalmed and buried in the grottoes of Beni-Hassan-el
Amar. The cat being a symbol of the moon was sacred to Isis, her goddess. It
sees in the dark and its eyes have a phosphorescent lustre which frightens the
night-birds of evil omen. The cat was also sacred to Bast, and thence called
“the (destroyer of the Sun’s (Osiris’) enemies”.
Buddha
(Sk.). Lit., “The
Enlightened”. The highest degree of knowledge. To become a Buddha one has to
break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete
perception of the REAL SELF and learn not to separate it from all otherselves;
to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible
Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is
evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the
everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness.
Buddha
Siddhârta (Sk.) The name given
to Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, at his birth. It is an abbreviation of sarvârtthasiddha
and means, the “realization of all desires”. Gautama, which means, on
earth (gâu) the most victorious (tama) “was the sacerdotal name
of the Sâkya family, the kingly patronymic of the dynasty to which the father
of Gautama, the King Suddhodhana of Kapilavastu, belonged. Kapilavastu was an
ancient city, the birth-place of the Great Reformer and was destroyed during
his life time. In the title Sâkyamuni, the last component, muni,
is rendered as meaning one mighty in charity, isolation and silence”, and the
former Sâkya is the family name. Every Orientalist or Pundit knows by heart the
story of Gautama, the Buddha, the most perfect of mortal men that the world has
ever seen, but none of them seem to suspect the esoteric meaning underlying his
prenatal
biography, i.e., the significance of the popular story. The Lalitavistűra
tells the tale, but abstains from hinting at the truth. The 5,000 jâtakas,
or the events of former births (re-incarnations) are taken literally instead of
esoterically. Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not
passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the
detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way
up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate
atom and insect, up to the highest—or man, contains simply the
well-known occult aphorism : “a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and
an animal a man”. Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through
the same evolution. But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births
(jâtaka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre
and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One
truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz.,
that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every
personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity. Buddha
Gautama, the fourth of the Sapta (Seven) Buddhas and Sapta Tathâgatas was born
according to Chinese Chronology in 1024 B.C; but according to the Singhalese
chronicles, on the 8th day of the second (or fourth) moon in the year 621 before
our era. He fled from his father’s palace to become an ascetic on the night of
the 8th day of the second moon, 597 BC., and having passed six years in ascetic
meditation at Gaya, and perceiving that physical self-torture was useless to
bring enlightenment, be decided upon striking out a new path, until he reached
the state of Bodhi. He became a full Buddha on the night of the 8th day of the
twelfth moon, in the year 592, and finally entered Nirvâna in the year 543
according to Southern Buddhism. The Orientalists, however, have decided upon
several other dates. All the rest is allegorical. He attained the state of
Bodhisattva on earth when in the personality called Prabhâpala. Tushita stands
for a place on this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The
selection of the Sâkya family and his mother Mâyâ, as “the purest on earth,” is
in accordance with the model of the nativity of every Saviour, God or deified
Reformer. The tale about his entering his mother’s bosom in the shape of a
white elephant is an allusion to his innate wisdom, the elephant of that colour
being a symbol of every Bodhisattva. The statements that at Gautama’s birth,
the newly born babe walked seven steps in four directions, that an
Udumbara flower bloomed in all its rare beauty and that the Nâga kings
forthwith proceeded ‘‘to baptise him ”, are all so many allegories in
the phraseology of the Initiates and well-understood by every Eastern
Occultist. The whole events of his noble life are given in occult numbers, and
every so-called miraculous event—so deplored by Orientalists as
confusing the narrative and making it impossible to extricate truth from
fiction—is simply the allegorical veiling of the truth, it is as comprehensible
to an Occultist learned in symbolism, as it is difficult to understand for a
European scholar ignorant of Occultism. Every detail of the narrative after his
death and before cremation is a chapter of facts written
in a language which must be studied before it is understood, otherwise its dead
letter will lead one into absurd contradictions. For instance, having reminded
his disciples of the immortality of Dharmakâya Buddha is said to have passed
into Samâdhi, and lost himself in Nirvâna—from which none can return.,
and yet, notwithstanding this, the Buddha is shown bursting open the lid of the
coffin, and stepping out of it ; saluting with folded hands his mother Mâyâ who
had suddenly appeared in the air, though she had died seven (days after his
birth, &c., &c. As Buddha. was a Chakravartti (he who turns the wheel
of the Law), his body at its cremation could not be consumed by common
fire. What happens Suddenly a jet of flame burst out of the
Swastica on his breast, and reduced his body to ashes. Space
prevents giving more instances. As to his being one of the true and undeniable
Saviours of the World, suffice it to say that the most rabid orthodox
missionary, unless he is hopelessly insane, or has not the least regard even
for historical truth, cannot find one smallest accusation against the life and
personal character of Gautama, the “Buddha”. Without any claim to divinity,
allowing his followers to fall into atheism, rather than into the degrading
superstition of deva or idol-worship, his walk in life is from the beginning to
the end, holy and divine. During the years of his mission it is blameless and
pure as that of a god—or as the latter should be. He is a perfect example of a
divine, godly man. He reached Buddhaship—i.e., complete enlightenment—entirely
by his own merit and owing to his own individual exertions, no god being
supposed to have any personal merit in the exercise of goodness and holiness.
Esoteric teachings claim that he renounced Nirvâna and gave up the Dharmakâya
vesture to remain a “Buddha of compassion” within the reach of the miseries of
this world. And the religious philosophy he left to it has produced for over
2,000 years generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only absolutely
bloodless religion among all the existing religions tolerant and
liberal, teaching universal compassion and charity, love and self-sacrifice,
poverty and contentment with one’s lot, whatever it may he. No persecutions,
and enforcement of faith by fire and sword, have ever disgraced it. No
thunder-and-lightning-vomiting god has interfered with its chaste commandments;
and if the simple, humane and philosophical code of daily life left to us by
the greatest Man-Reformer ever known, should ever come to he adopted by mankind
at large, then indeed an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity.
Buddhachhâyâ
(Sk.). Lit., “the shadow of
Buddha”. It is said to become visible at certain great events, and during some
imposing ceremonies performed at Temples in commemoration of glorious acts of
Buddhas life. Hiouen-tseng, the Chinese traveller, names a certain cave where
it occasionally appears on the wall, but adds that only he whose mind is
perfectly pure”, can see it.
Buddhaphala
(Sk) Lit., “the fruit of
Buddha”, the fruition of Arahattvaphalla, or Arhatship.
Buddhi
(Sk.). Universal Soul or Mind. Mahâbuddhi is a
name of Mahat (see “Alaya”); also the spiritual Soul in man (the sixth
principle), the vehicle of Atmâ exoterically the seventh.
Buddhism. Buddhism is now split into two distinct Churches :
the Southern and the Northern Church. The former is said to be the purer form,
as having preserved more religiously the original teachings of the Lord Buddha.
It is the religion of Ceylon, Siam, Burmah and other places, while Northern
Buddhism is confined to Tibet, China and Nepaul. Such a distinction, however,
is incorrect. If the Southern Church is nearer, in that it has not departed,
except perhaps in some trifling dogmas due to the many councils held after the
death of the Master, from the public or exoteric teachings of
Sâkyamuni—the Northern Church is the outcome of Siddhârta Buddha’s esoteric
teachings which he confined to his elect Bhikshus and Arhats. In fact, Buddhism
in the present age, cannot he justly judged either by one or the other of its
exoteric popular forms. Real Buddhism can be appreciated only by blending the
philosophy of the Southern Church and the metaphysics of the Northern Schools.
If one seems too iconoclastic and stero:, and the other too metaphysical and
transcendental, even to being overgrown with the weeds of Indian exotericism—many
of the gods of its Pantheon having been transplanted under new names to Tibetan
soil—it is entirely due to the popular expression of Buddhism in both Churches.
Correspondentially they stand in their relation to each other as Protestantism
to Roman Catholicism. Both err by an excess of zeal and erroneous
interpretations, though neither the Southern nor the Northern Buddhist clergy
have ever departed from truth consciously, still less have they acted under the
dictates of priestocracy, ambition, or with an eye to personal gain and
power, as the two Christian Churches have.
Buddhochinga
(Sk) The name of a great
Indian Arhat who went to China in the 4th century to propagate Buddhism and
converted masses of people by means of miracles and most wonderful magic feats.
Budha
(Sk. “The Wise and
Intelligent”, the Son of Soma, the Moon, and of Rokini or Taraka, wife of
Brihaspati carried away by King Soma, thus leading to the great war between the
Asuras, who sided with the Moon, and the Gods who took the defence of
Brihaspati (Jupiter) who, was their Purohita (family priest). This war
is known as the Tarakamaya. It is the original of the war in Olympus
between the Gods and the Titans and also of the war (in Revelation
between Michael (Indra) and the Dragon (personifying the Asuras).
Bull-Worship
(See “Apis” ). The worship of the
Bull and the Ram was addressed to one and the same power, that of generative
creation, under two aspects— the celestial or cosmic, and the terrestrial or
human. The ram-headed gods all belong to the latter aspect, the bull—to the
former. Osiris to whom the Bull was sacred, was never regarded as a phallic
deity ; neither was Siva with his Bull Nandi, in spite of the lingham.
As Nandi is of a pure milk-white colour, so was Apis. Both were the emblems of
the generative, or of evolutionary power in the Universal Kosmos. Those who
regard the solar gods and the bulls as of a phallic character, or connect the
Sun with it, are mistaken, it is only the lunar gods and the rams, and lambs, which
are priapic, and it little becomes a religion which, however unconsciously, has
still adopted for its worship a god pre-eminently lunar, and accentuated
its choice by the selection of the lamb, whose sire is the ram, a glyph as
pre-eminently phallic, for its most sacred symbol—to vilify the older religions
for using the same symbolism. The worship of the bull, Apis, Hapi Ankh, or the
living Osiris, ceased over 3,000 years ago the worship of the ram and lamb
continues to this day. Mariette Bey discovered the Serapeum, the Necropolis of
the Apis-bulls, near Memphis, an imposing subterranean crypt 2,000 feet long
and twenty feet wide, containing the mummies of thirty sacred bulls. If 1,000
years hence, a Roman Catholic Cathedral with the Easter lamb in it, were
discovered under the ashes of Vesuvius or Etna, would future generations be
justified in inferring therefrom that Christians were “lamb” and “dove”
worshippers ? Yet the two symbols would give them as much right in the one case
as in the other. Moreover, not all of the sacred “Bulls” were phallic, i.e.,
males; there were hermaphrodite and sexless “bulls”. The black bull Mnevis,
the son of Ptah, was sacred to the God Ra at Heliopolis; the Pacis of
Hermonthis—to Amoun Horus, &c., &c., and Apis himself was a
hermaphodite and not a male animal, which shows his cosmic character. As well
call the Taurus of the Zodiac and all Nature phallic.
Bumapa
(Tib.). A school of men,
usually a college of mystic students.
Bunda-hish. An old Eastern work in which among other things
anthropology is treated in an allegorical fashion.
Burham-i-Kati. A Hermetic Eastern work.
Burî
(Scand) “The producer”, the
Son of Bestla, in Norse legends.
Buru
Bonga. The “Spirit of the Hills”.
This Dryadic deity is worshipped by the Kolarian tribes of Central India with
great ceremonies and magical display. There are mysteries connected with it,
but the people are very jealous and will admit no stranger to their rites.
Busardier. A Hermetic philosopher born in Bohemia who is
credited with having made a genuine powder of projection. He left the bulk of
his red powder to a friend named Richthausen, an adept and alchemist of
Vienna. Some years after Busardier’s death, in 1637, Richthausen introduced himself
to the Emperor Ferdinand III, who is known to have been ardently devoted to
alchemy, and together they are said to have converted three pounds of mercury
into the finest gold with one single grain of Busardier’s powder. In 1658 the
Elector of Mayence also was permitted to test the powder, and the gold produced
with it was declared by the Master of the Mint to be such, that he had never
seen finer. Such are the claims vouchsafed by the city records and chronicles.
Butler. An English name assumed by an adept, a disciple of
some Eastern Sages, of whom many fanciful stories are current. It is said for
instance, that Butler was captured during his travels in 1629, and sold into
captivity. He became the slave of an Arabian philosopher, a great alchemist, and
finally escaped, robbing his Master of a large quantity of red powder.
According to more trustworthy records, only the last portion of this story is
true. Adepts who can be robbed without knowing it would be unworthy of the
name. Butler or rather the person who assumed this name, robbed his
“Master” (whose free disciple he was) of the secret of transmutation,
and abused of his knowledge—i.e., sought to turn it to his personal profit, but
was speedily punished for it. After performing many wonderful cures by means of
his “stone (i.e., the occult knowledge of an initiated adept), and producing
extraordinary phenomena, to some of which Val Helmont, the famous Occultist and
Rosicrucian, was witness, not for the benefit of men but his own vain glory,
Butler was imprisoned in the Castle of Viloord, in Flanders, and passed almost
the whole of his life in confinement. He lost his powers and died miserable and
unknown. Such is the fate of every Occultist who abuses his power or desecrates
the sacred science.
Bythos
(Gr.). A Gnostic term meaning “Depth” or the “great Deep”,
Chaos. It is equivalent to space, before anything had formed itself in it from
the primordial atoms that exist eternally in its spatial depths, according to
the teachings of Occultism.
Find out more about
Theosophy
with these links
and there’s always a cup of tea afterwards
The
Cardiff Theosophical Society Website
The
National Wales Theosophy Website
Theosophy Cardiff’s Instant
Guide to Theosophy
History of
the Theosophical Society in Wales
Theosophy and the
Number Seven
A selection of
articles relating to the esoteric
significance
of the Number 7 in Theosophy
Dave’s Streetwise Theosophy
Boards
The Most Basic
Theosophy Website in the Universe
If you run a
Theosophy Group, you can use
This as an introductory handout
One liners and quick explanations
About aspects of Theosophy