Cardiff Blavatsky Archive, Wales, UK:- Theosophy Study Resource

THEOSOPHY

H P BLAVATSKY

Cardiff Blavatsky Archive

Cardiff Theosophical Society, 206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 – 1DL.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 - 1891

THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY

H. P. BLAVATSKY

First Published 1892

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K.—The eleventh ]etter in both the English and the Hebrew alphabets. As a numeral it stands in the latter for 20, and in the former for 250, and with a stroke over it (K) for 250,000. The Kabalists and the Masons appropriate the word Kodesh or Kadosh as the name of the Jewish god under this letter.

Ka (Sk.). According to Max Muller, the interrogative pronoun “who?”—raised to the dignity of a deity without cause or reason. Still it has its esoteric significance and is a name of Brahmâ in his phallic character as generator or Prajâpati (q.v.).

Kabah or Kaaba (Arab). The name of the famous Mahommedan temple at Mecca, a great place of pilgrimage. The edifice is not large but very original; of a cubical form 23 X 24 cubits in length and breadth and 27 cubits high, with only one aperture on the East side to admit light. In the north-east corner is the “black stone” of Kaaba, said to have been lowered down direct from heaven and to have been as white as snow, but subsequently it became black, owing to the sins of mankind The “white stone”, the reputed tomb of Ismael, is in the north side and the place of Abraham is to the east. If, as the Mahommedans claim, this temple was, at the prayer of Adam after his exile, transferred by Allah or Jehovah direct from Eden down to earth, then the “heathen” may truly claim to have far exceeded the divine primordial architecture in the beauty of their edifices.

Kabalist. From Q B L H, KABALA, an unwritten or oral tradition. The kabalist is a student of “secret science”, one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or “magic”. History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century. The Mediæval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala (or Qabbalah, as some spell it). The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Böhmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton., Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible. As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah, the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. “Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbé ,de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, ‘The Count de Gabalis’, upon which Pope based his ‘Rape of the Lock’. Qabbalism ran through the Mediæval poems, the ‘Romance of the Rose’, and permeates the writings of Dante.” No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea. The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics. The best exponents of the Kabala in the Theosophical Society were among the earliest, Dr. S. Pancoast, of Philadelphia, and Mr. G. Felt; and among the latest, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, Mr. S. L. Mac Gregor Mathers (both of the Rosicrucian College) and a few others. (See “ Qabbalah “.)

Kabalistic Faces. These are Nephesch, Ruach and Neschamah, or the animal (vital), the Spiritual and the Divine Souls in man—Body, Soul and Mind.

Kabalah (Heb.). The hidden wisdom of the Hebrew Rabbis of the middle ages derived from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon. All the works that fall under the esoteric category are termed Kabalistic.

Kabiri (Phœn.) or the Kabirim. Deities and very mysterious gods with the ancient nations, including the Israelites, some of whom—as Terah, Abram’s father—worshipped them under the name of Teraphim. With the Christians, however, they are now devils, although the modern Archangels are the direct transformation of these same Kabiri. In Hebrew the latter name means “the mighty ones”, Gibborim. At one time all the deities connected with fire—whether they were divine, infernal or volcanic—were called Kabirian.

Kadmon (Heb.). Archetypal man. See.“Adam Kadmon”.

Kadosh (Heb.). Consecrated, holy; also written Kodesh. Something set apart for temple worship. But between the etymological meaning of the word, and its subsequent significance in application to the Kadeshim (the “priests” set apart for certain temple rites)—there is an abyss. The words Kadosh and Kadeshim are used in II. Kings as rather an opprobrious name, for the Kadeshuth of the Bible were identical in their office and duties with the Nautch girls of some Hindu temples. They were Galli, the mutilated priests of the lascivious rites of Venus Astarte, who lived “by the house of the Lord”. Curiously enough the terms Kadosh, etc., were appropriated and used- by several degrees of Masonic knighthood.

Kailasa (Sk.). In metaphysics “heaven”, the abode of gods; geographically a mountain range in the Himalayas, north of the Mansaravâra lake, called also lake Manasa.

Kailem (Heb.). Lit., vessels or vehicles; the vases for the source of the Waters of Life ; used of the Ten Sephiroth, considered as the primeval nuclei of all Kosmic Forces. Some Kabalists regard them as manifesting in the universe through twenty-two canals, which are represented by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus making with the Ten Sephiroth thirty-two paths of wisdom. [w. w. w.]

Kaimarath (Pers.). The last of the race of the prehuman kings. He is identical with Adam Kadmon. A fabulous Persian hero.

Kakodæmon (Gr.). The evil genius as opposed to Agathodæmon the good genius, or deity.
A Gnostic term.

Kala (Sk.). A measure of time; four hours, a period of thirty Kashthas.

Kala (Sk.). Time, fate; a cycle and a proper name, or title given to Yama, King of the nether world and

Judge of the Dead.

Kalabhana (Sk.). The same as Taraka (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., p. 382, foot-note).

Kalagni (Sk.). The flame of time. A divine Being created by Siva, a monster with 1,000 heads. A title of Siva meaning “the fire of fate”.

Kalahansa or Hamsa (Sk). A mystic title given to Brahma (or Parabrahman); means “the swan in and out of time”. Brahmâ (male) is called Hansa-Vahan, the vehicle of the “Swan”.

Kalavingka (Sk.), also Kuravikaya and Karanda, etc. “The sweet- voiced bird of immortality “. Eitel identifies it with cuculus melanoleicus, though the bird itself is allegorical and non-existent. Its voice is heard at a certain stage of Dhyana in Yoga practice. It is said to have awakened King Bimbisara and thus saved him from the sting of a cobra. In its esoteric meaning this sweet-voiced bird is our Higher Ego.

Kalevala. The Finnish Epic of Creation.

Kali (Sk.). The “black”, now the name of Parvati, the consort of Siva, but originally that of one of the seven tongues of Agni, the god of fire—“the black, fiery tongue”. Evil and wickedness.

Kalidasa (Sk.). The greatest poet and dramatist of India.

Kaliya (Sk.). The five-headed serpent killed by Krishna in his childhood. A mystical monster symbolizing the passions of man—the river or water being a symbol of matter.

Kaliyuga (Sk.). The fourth, the black or iron age, our present period, the duration of which us 432,000 years. The last of the ages into which the evolutionary period of man is divided by a series of such ages. It began 3,102 years B.C. at the moment of Krishna’s death, and the first cycle of 5,ooo years will end between the years 1897 and 1898.

Kalki Avatar (Sk.). The “White Horse Avatar”, which will be the last manvantaric incarnation of Vishnu, according to the Brahmins; of Maitreya Buddha, agreeably to Northern Buddhists; of Sosiosh, the last hero and Saviour of the Zoroastrians, as claimed by Parsis ; and of the “Faithful and True” on the white Horse (Rev. xix.,2 ). In his future epiphany or tenth avatar, the heavens will open and Vishnu will appear “seated on a milk-white steed, with a drawn sword blazing like a comet, for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of ‘creation’ and the ‘restoration of purity’”. (Compare Revelation.) This will take place at the end of the Kaliyuga 427,000 years hence. The latter end of every Yuga is called “the destruction of the world”, as then the earth changes each time its outward form, submerging one set of continents and upheaving another set.

Kalluka Bhatta (Sk.). A commentator of the Hindu Manu Smriti Scriptures; a well-known writer and historian.

Kalpa (Sk.). The period of a mundane revolution, generally a cycle of time, but usually, it represents a “day” and “night” of Brahmâ, a period of 4,320,000,000 years.

Kama (Sk.) Evil desire, lust, volition; the cleaving to existence. Kama is generally identified with Mara the tempter.

Kamadeva (Sk.). In the popular notions the god of love, a Visva-deva, in the Hindu Pantheon. As the Eros of Hesiod, degraded into Cupid by exoteric law, and still more degraded by a later popular sense attributed to the term, so is Kama a most mysterious and metaphysical subject. The earlier Vedic description of Kama alone gives the key-note to what he emblematizes. Kama is the first conscious, all embracing desire for universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that arose in the consciousness of the creative ONE Force, as soon as it came into life and being as a ray from the ABSOLUTE. Says the Rig Veda, “Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind, and which Sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart to be the bond which connects Entity with non-Entity”, or Manas with pure Atma-Buddhi. There is no idea of sexual love in the conception. Kama is pre-eminently the divine desire of creating happiness and love; and it is only ages later, as mankind began to materialize by anthropomorphization its grandest ideals into cut and dried dogmas, that Kama became the power that gratifies desire on the animal plane. This is shown by what every Veda and some Brahmanas say. In the Atharva Veda, Kama is represented as the Supreme Deity and Creator. In the Taitarîya Brahmana, he is the child of Dharma, the god of Law and Justice, of Sraddha and faith. In another account he springs from the heart of Brahmâ. Others show him born from water, i.e., from primordial chaos, or the “Deep”. Hence one of his many names, Irâ-ja, “the water-born”; and Aja, “unborn” ; and Atmabhu or “Self-existent”. Because of the sign of Makara (Capricornus) on his banner, he is also called “ Makara Ketu”. The allegory about Siva, the “Great Yogin ”, reducing Kama to ashes by the fire from his central (or third) Eye, for inspiring the Mahadeva with thoughts of his wife, while he was at his devotions—is very suggestive, as it is said that he thereby reduced Kama to his primeval spiritual form.

Kamadhâtu (Sk.). Called also Kamâvatchara, a region including Kâmalôka. In exoteric ideas it is the first of the Trailâkya—or three regions (applied also to celestial beings) or seven planes or degrees, each broadly represented by one of the three chief characteristics; namely, Kama, Rupa and Arupa, or those of desire, form and formlessness. The first of the Trailokyas, Kamadhâtu, is thus composed of the earth and the six inferior Devalokas, the earth being followed by Kamaloka (q.v.). These taken together constitute the seven degrees of the material world of form and sensuous gratification. The second of the Trailôkya (or Trilôkya) is called Rupadhâtu or “material form” and is also composed of seven Lokas (or localities). The third is Arupadhâtu or “immaterial lokas”. “Locality”, however, is an incorrect word to use in translating the term dhâtu, which does not mean in some of its special applications a “place” at all. For instance, Arupadhâtu is a purely subjective world, a “state” rather than a place. But as the European tongues have no adequate metaphysical terms to express certain ideas, we can only point out the difficulty.

Kamaloka (Sk.). The semi-material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where the disembodied “personalities”, the astral forms, called Kamarupa remain, until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires; (See “Kamarupa”.) It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows; a division of the first group of the Trailôkya. (See “Kamadhâtu”.)

Kamarupa (Sk.). Metaphysically, and in our esoteric philosophy, it is the subjective form created through the mental and physical desires and thoughts in connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings, a form which survives the death of their bodies. After that death three of the seven “principles”—or let us say planes of senses and consciousness on which the human instincts and ideation act in turn—viz., the body, its astral prototype and physical vitality,—being of no further use, remain on earth; the three higher principles, grouped into one, merge into the state of Devachan (q.v.), in which state the Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives; and the eidolon of the ex-Personality is left alone in its new abode. Here, the pale copy of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is variable and according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which is determined by the past life of the defunct. Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But, if forcibly drawn back into the terrestrial sphere whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices—one of the most pernicious of which is medium- ship—the “spook” may prevail for a period greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kamarupa has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire, feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these eidolons are called Pisâchas, and are much dreaded, as already explained elsewhere.

Kamea (Heb.). An amulet, generally a magic square.

Kandu .(Sk.). A holy sage of the second root-race, a yogi, whom Pramlôcha, a “nymph” sent by Indra for that purpose, beguiled, and lived with for several centuries. Finally, the Sage returning to his senses, repudiated and chased her away. Whereupon she gave birth to a daughter, Mârishâ. The story is in an allegorical fable from the Purânas.

Kanishka (Sk.). A King of the Tochari, who flourished when the third Buddhist Synod met in Kashmir, i.e., about the middle of the last century B.C., a great patron of Buddhism, he built the finest stûpas or dagobas in Northern India and Kabulistan.

Kanishthas (Sk.). A class of gods which will manifest in the fourteenth or last manvantara of our world—according to the Hindus.

Kanya (Sk.). A virgin or maiden. Kanya Kumârî “the virgin- maiden” is a title of Durga-Kali, worshipped by the Thugs and Tantrikas.

Kapila Rishi (Sk.). A great sage, a great adept of antiquity; the author of the Sankhya philosophy.

Kapilavastu (Sk.). The birth-place of the Lord Buddha; called “the yellow dwelling”: the capital of the monarch who was the father of Gautama Buddha.

Karabtanos (Gr.). The spirit of blind or animal desire; the symbol of Kama-rupa. The Spirit “without sense or judgment” in the Codex of the Nazarenes. He is the symbol of matter and stands for the father of the seven spirits of concupiscence begotten by him on his mother, the “Spiritus” or the Astral Light.

Karam (Sk.). A great festival in honour of the Sun-Spirit with the Kolarian tribes.

Kârana (Sk.). Cause (metaphysically).

Kârana Sarîra (Sk.). The “Causal body”. It is dual in its meaning. Exoterically, it is Avidya, ignorance, or that which is the cause of the evolution of a human ego and its reincarnation ; hence the lower Manas esoterically—the causal body or Kâranopadhi stands in the Taraka Raja yoga as corresponding to Buddhi and the Higher “ Manas,” or Spiritual Soul.

Karanda (Sk.). The “sweet-voiced bird,” the same as Kalavingka (q.v.)

Kâranopadhi (Sk.). The basis or upadhi of Karana, the “causal soul”. In Taraka Rajayoga, it corresponds with both Manas and Buddhi. See Table in the Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 157.

Kardecists. The followers of the spiritistic system of Allan Kardec, the Frenchman who founded the modern movement of the Spiritist School. The Spiritists of France differ from the American and English Spiritualists in that their “Spirits” teach reincarnation, while those of the United States and Great Britain denounce this belief as a heretical fallacy and abuse and slander those who accept it. “When Spirits disagree...”

Karma (Sk.). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism ; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the meta physical Samskâra, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration ‘ or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the causes produced by it ; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes—unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished. No “personality”—a mere bundle of material atoms and of instinctual and mental characteristics—can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure Spirit. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is therefore the Ego, that self which is the “moral kernel” referred to and embodied karma, “which alone survives death.”

Karnak (Eg.). The ruins of the ancient temples, and palaces which now stand on the emplacement of ancient Thebes. The most magnificent representatives of the art and skill of the earliest Egyptians. A few lines quoted from Champollion, Denon and an English traveller, show most eloquently what these ruins are. Of Karnak Champollion writes :— “The ground covered by the mass of remaining buildings is square; and each side measures 1,800 feet. One is astounded and overcome by the grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality and magnificence of workmanship to be seen everywhere. No people of ancient or modern times has conceived the art of architecture upon a scale so sublime, so grandiose as it existed among the ancient Egyptians; and the imagination, which in Europe soars far above our porticos, arrests itself and falls powerless at the foot of the hundred and forty columns of the hypostyle of Karnak! In one of its halls, the Cathedral of Notre Dame might stand and not touch the ceiling, but be considered as a small ornament in the centre of the hall.”

Another writer exclaims: “Courts, halls, gateways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic figures, sculptures, long rows of sphinxes, are found in such profusion at Karnak, that the sight is too much for modern compre-hension.” Says Denon, the French traveller: “It is hardly possible to believe, after seeing it, in the reality of the existence of so many buildings collected together on a single point, in their dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction required, and in the incalculable expenses of so much magnificence! It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake. . . . There are lakes and mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. These two edifices are selected as examples from a list next to inexhaustible. The whole valley and delta of the Nile, from the cataracts to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, obelisks, and pillars. The execution of the sculptures is beyond praise. The mechanical perfection with which artists wrought in granite, serpentine, breccia, and basalt, is wonderful, according to all the experts animals and plants look as good as natural, and artificial objects are beautifully sculptured; battles by sea and land, and scenes of domestic life are to be found in all their bas-reliefs.”

Karnaim (Heb.). Horned, an attribute of Ashtoreth and Astarte; those horns typify the male element, and convert the deity into an androgyne. Isis also is at times horned. Compare also the idea of the Crescent Moon—-symbol of Isis—as horned. [w.w.w.]

Karneios (Gr.). “Apollo Karneїos,” is evidently an avatar of the Hindu “Krishna Karna”. Both were Sun-gods; both “Karna” and Karneios meaning “radiant”. (See the Secret Doctrine II., p. 44. note.)

Karshipta (Mazd.). The holy bird of Heaven in the Mazdean Scriptures, of which Ahura Mazda says to Zaratushta that “he recites the Avesta in the language of birds” (Bund. xix. et seq.). The bird is the symbol of “Soul” of Angel and Deva in every old religion. It is easy to see, therefore, that this “holy bird” means the divine Ego of man, or the “Soul”. The same as Karanda (q.v.).

Karshvare (Zend). The “seven earths” (our septenary chain) over which rule the Amesha Spenta, the Archangels or Dhyan Chohans of the Parsis. The seven earths, of which one only, namely Hvanirata—our earth—is known to mortals. The Earths (esoterically), or seven divisions (exoterically), are our own planetary chain as in Esoteric Buddhism and the Secret Doctrine. The doctrine is plainly stated in Fargard XIX., 39, of the Vendidad.

Kartikeya (Sk), or Kartika. The Indian God of War, son of Siva, born of his seed fallen into the Ganges. He is also the personification of the power of the Logos. The planet Mars. Kartika is a very occult personage, a nursling of the Pleiades, and a Kumâra. (See Secret Doctrine.)

Karunâ-Bhâwanâ (Sk.). The meditation of pity and compassion in Yoga.

Kasbeck. The mountain in the Caucasian range where Prometheus was bound.

Kasi (Sk.). Another and more ancient name of the holy city of Benares.

Kasina (Sk.). A mystic Yoga rite used to free the mind from all agitation and bring the Kamic element to a dead stand-still.

KâsiKhanda (Sk.). A long poem, which forms a part of the Skanda Purâna and contains another version of the legend of Daksha’s head. Having lost it in an affray, the gods replaced it with the head of a ram Mekha Shivas, whereas the other versions describe it as the head of a goat, a substitution which changes the allegory considerably.

Kasyapa (Sk.). A Vedic Sage; in the words of Atharva Veda, “The self-born who sprang from Time”. Besides being the father of the Adityas headed by Indra, Kasyapa is also the progenitor of serpents, reptiles, birds and other walking, flying and creeping beings.

Katha (Sk.) One of the Upanishads commented upon by Sankarâchârya.

Kaumara (Sk.). The “Kumara Creation”, the virgin youths who sprang from the body of Brahmâ.

Kauravya (Sk.). The King of the Nagas (Serpents) in Pâtâla, exoterically a hall. But esoterically it means something very different. There is a tribe of the Nâgas in Upper India; Nagal is the name in Mexico of the chief medicine men to this day, and was that of the chief adepts in the twilight of history; and finally Patal means the Antipodes and is a name of America. Hence the story that Arjuna travelled to Pâtàla, and married Ulupi, the daughter of the King Kauravya, may he as historical as many others regarded first as fabled and then found out to be true.

Kayanim (Heb.). Also written Cunim; the name of certain mystic cakes offered to Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus. Jeremiah speaks of these Cunim offered to the “Queen of Heaven”, vii. 18. Nowadays we do not offer the buns, but eat them at Easter. [w.w.w.]

Kavyavahana (Sk.). The fire of the Pitris.

Kchana (Sk.). A second incalculably short: the 90th part or fraction of a thought, the 4,500th part of a minute, during which from 90 to 100 births and as many deaths occur on this earth.

Kebar-Zivo (Gnostic). One of the chief creators in the Codex Nasaræus.

Keherpas (Sk.). Aerial form,

Keshara (Sk.). “Sky Walker”, i.e., a Yogi who can travel in his astral form.

Kether (Heb.). The Crown, the highest of the ten Sephiroth; the first of the Supernal Triad. It corresponds to the Macroprosopus, vast countenance, or Arikh Anpin, which differentiates into Chokmah and Binah. [w.w.w.]

Ketu (Sk.). The descending node in astronomy; the tail of the celestial dragon who attacks the Sun during the eclipses; also a comet or meteor.

Key. A symbol of universal importance, the emblem of silence among the ancient nations. Represented on the threshold of the Adytum, a key had a double meaning: it reminded the candidates of the obligations of silence, and promised the unlocking of many a hitherto impenetrable mystery to the profane. In the “Œdipus Coloneus” of Sophocles, the chorus speaks of “the golden key which had come upon the tongue of the ministering Hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis”, (1051). “The priestess of Ceres, according to Callimachus, bore a key as her ensign of office, and the key was, in the Mysteries of Isis, symbolical of the opening or disclosing of the heart and conscience before the forty-two assessors of the dead”.
(R. M. Cyc1opædia).

Khado (Tib.). Evil female demons in popular folk-lore. In the Esoteric Philosophy occult and evil Forces of nature. Elementals known in Sanskrit as Dakini.

Khaldi. The earliest inhabitants of Chaldea who were first the worshippers of the Moon god, Deus Lunus, a worship which was brought to them by the great stream of early Hindu emigration, and later a caste of regular Astrologers and Initiates.

Kha (Sk.). The same as “Akâsa”.

Khamism. A name given by the Egyptologists to the ancient language of Egypt. Khami, also.

Khanda Kâla (Sk.). Finite or conditioned time in contradistinction to infinite time, or
eternity—Kala.

Khem (Eg.). The same as Horus. “The God Khem will avenge his father Osiris”; says a text in a papyrus.

Khepra (Eg.). An Egyptian god presiding over rebirth and transmigration. He is represented with a scarabæus instead of a head.

Khi (Chin.). Lit., “breath”; meaning Buddhi.

Khnoom (Eg.). The great Deep, or Primordial Space.

Khoda (Pers.). The name for the Deity.

Khons, or Chonso. (Eg.) The Son of Maut and Ammon, the personification of morning. He is the Theban Harpocrates, according to some. Like Horus he crushes under his foot a crocodile, emblem of night and darkness or Seb (Sebek) who is Typhon. But in the inscriptions, he is addressed as “the Healer of diseases and banisher of all evil”. He is also the “god of the hunt”, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson would see in him the Egyptian Hercules, probably because the Romans had a god named Consus who presided over horse races and was therefore called “the concealer of secrets”. But the latter is a later variant on the Egyptian Khons, who is more probably an aspect of Horus, as he wears a hawk’s head, carries the whip and crook of Osiris the tat and the crux ansata.

Khoom (Eg.), or Knooph. The Soul of the world; a variant of Khnoom.

Khubilkhan (Mong.), or Shabrong. In Tibet the names given to the supposed incarnations of Buddha. Elect Saints.

Khunrath, Henry. A famous Kabalist, chemist and physician born in 1502, initiated into Theosophy (Rosicrucian) in 1544. He left some excellent Kabalistic works, the best of which is the “Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom” (1598).

Kimapurushas (Sk.). Monstrous Devas, half-men, half-horses.

Kings of Edom. Esoterically, the early, tentative, malformed races of men. Some Kabalists interpret them as “sparks”, worlds in formation disappearing as soon as formed.

Kinnaras (Sk.). Lit., “What men?” Fabulous creatures of the same description as the Kim-purushas, One of the four classes of beings called “Maharajas”.

Kioo-tche (Chin.). An astronomical work.

Kirâtarjuniya of Bharavi (Sk.). A Sanskrit epic, celebrating the strife and prowess of Arjuna with the god Siva disguised as a forester.

Kiver-Shans (Chin.). The astral or “Thought Body”.

Kiyun (Heb.). Or the god Kivan which was worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness and was probably identical with Saturn and even with the god Siva. Indeed, as the Zendic H is S in India (their “hapta” is “sapta”, etc.), and as the letters K, H, and S, are interchangeable, Siva may have easily become Kiva and Kivan.

Klesha (Sk.). Love of life, but literally “pain and misery”. Cleaving to existence, and almost the same as Kama.

Klikoosha (Russ.). One possessed by the Evil one. Lit., a “crier out”, a “screamer”, as such unfortunates are periodically attacked with fits during which they crow like cocks, neigh, bray and prophesy.

Klippoth (Heb.). Shells: used in the Kabbalah in several senses; (1) evil spirits, demons; (2) the shells of dead human beings, not the physical body, but the remnant of the personality after the spirit has departed; (3) the Elementaries of some authors.

Kneph (Eg.). Also Cneph and Nef, endowed with the same attributes as Khem. One of the gods of creative Force, for he is connected with the Mundane Egg. He is called by Porphyry “the creator of the world”; by Plutarch the “unmade and eternal deity”; by Eusebius he is identified with the Logos; and Jamblichus goes so far as almost to identify him with Brahmâ since he says of him that “this god is intellect itself, intellectually perceiving itself, and consecrating intellections to itself; and is to be worshipped in silence”. One form of him, adds Mr. Bonwick “was Av meaning flesh. He was criocephalus, with a solar disk on his head, and standing on the serpent Mehen. In his left hand was a viper, and a cross was in his right. He was actively engaged in the underworld upon a mission of creation.” Deveria writes: “His journey to the lower hemisphere appears to symbolise the evolutions of substances which are born to die and to be reborn”. Thousands of years before Kardec, Swedenborg, and Darwin appeared, the old Egyptians entertained their several philosophies. (Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought.)

Koinobi (Gr.). A sect which lived in Egypt in the early part of the first Christian century; usually confounded with the Therapeutæ. They passed for magicians.

Kokab (Chald.). The Kabalistic name associated with the planet Mercury; also the Stellar light.
[w.w.w.]

Kol (Heb.). A voice, in Hebrew letters QUL. The Voice of the divine. (See “Bath Kol” and “Vâch”.)
[w.w.w.]

Kols. One of the tribes in central India, much addicted to magic. They are considered to he great sorcerers.

Konx-Om-Pax (Gr.). Mystic words used in the Eleusinian mysteries. It is believed that these words are the Greek imitation of ancient Egyptian words once used in the secret ceremonies of the Isiac cult. Several modern authors give fanciful translations, but they are all only guesses at the truth. [w.w.w.]

Koorgan (Russ.). An artificial mound, generally an old tomb. Traditions of a supernatural or magical character are often attached to such mounds.

Koran (Arab.), or Quran. The sacred Scripture of the Mussulmans, revealed to the Prophet Mohammed by Allah (god) himself. The revelation differs, however, from that given by Jehovah to Moses. The Christians abuse the Koran calling it a hallucination, and the work of an Arabian impostor. Whereas, Mohammed preaches in his Scripture the unity of Deity, and renders honour to the Christian prophet “Issa Ben Yussuf” (Jesus, son of Joseph). The Koran is a grand poem, replete with ethical teachings proclaiming loudly Faith, Hope and Charity.

Kosmos (Gr.). The Universe, as distinguished from the world, which may mean our globe or earth.

Kounboum (Tib.). The sacred Tree of Tibet, the “tree of the 10,000 images” as Huc gives it. It grows in an enclosure on the Monastery lands of the Lamasery of the same name, and is well cared for. Tradition has it that it grew out of the hair of Tson-ka-pa, who was buried on that spot. This “Lama” was the great Reformer of the Buddhism of Tibet, and is regarded as an incarnation of Amita Buddha. In the words of the Abbé Huc, who lived several months with another missionary named Gabet near this phenomenal tree: “Each of its leaves, in opening, bears either a letter or a religious sentence, written in sacred characters, and these letters are, of their kind, of such a perfection that the type-foundries of Didot contain nothing to excel them. Open the leaves, which vegetation is about to unroll, and you will there
discover, on the point of appearing, the letters or the distinct words which are the marvel of this unique tree! Turn your attention from the leaves of the plant to the bark of its branches, and new characters will meet your eyes! Do not allow your interest to flag; raise the layers of this bark, and still OTHER CHARACTERS will show themselves below those whose beauty had surprised you. For, do not fancy that these super posed layers repeat the same printing. No, quite the contrary; for each lamina you lift presents to view its distinct type. How, then, can we suspect jugglery? I have done my best in that direction to discover the slightest trace of human trick, and my baffled mind could not retain the slightest suspicion.” Yet promptly the kind French Abbé suspects the Devil.

Kratudwishas (Sk.). The enemies of the Sacrifices; the Daityas, Danavas, Kinnaras, etc., etc., all represented as great ascetics and Yogis. This shows who are really meant. They were the enemies of religious mummeries and ritualism.

Kravyâd (Sk.). A flesh-eater; a carnivorous man or animal.

Krisâswas Sons of (Sk.). The weapons called Agneyastra. The magical living weapons endowed with intelligence, spoken of in the Ramayana and elsewhere. An occult allegory.

Krishna (Sk.).. The most celebrated avatar of Vishnu, the “Saviour” of the Hindus and their most popular god. He is the- eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and the nephew of Kansa, the Indian King Herod, who while seeking for him among the shepherds and cow-herds who concealed him, slew thousands of their newly-born babes. The story of Krishna’s conception, birth, and childhood are the exact prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who came to India.

Krita-Yuga (Sk.). The first of the four Yugas or Ages of the Brahmans; also called Satya-Yuga, a period lasting 1,728,000 years.

Krittika (Sk.). The Pleiades. The seven nurses of Karttikiya, the god of War.

Kriyasakti (Gk.). The power of thought; one of the seven forces of Nature. Creative potency of the Siddhis (powers) of the full Yogis.

Kronos (Gr.). Saturn. The God of Boundless Time and of the Cycles.

Krura-lochana (Sk.). The “evil-eyed”; used of Sani, the Hindu Saturn, the planet.

Kshanti (Sk.). Patience, one of the Paramîtas of perfection.

Kahatriya (Sk.). The second of the four castes into which the Hindus were originally divided.

Kshetrajna or Kshetrajneswara (Sk.). Embodied spirit, the Conscious Ego in its highest manifestations; the reincarnating Principle; the “Lord” in us.

Kshetram (Sk.). The “Great Deep” of the Bible and Kabala. Chaos, Yoni; Prakriti, Space.

Kshira Samudra (Sk.). Ocean of milk, churned by the gods.

Kuch-ha-guf (Heb.). The astral body of a man. In Franz Lambert it is written “Coach-ha-guf”. But the Hebrew word is Kuch, meaning vis, “force”, motive origin of the earthy body.

Kuklos Anagkês (Gr.). Lit., “The Unavoidable Cycle” or the “Circle of Necessity”-. Of the numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea the most renowned were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former began on the Western side of the Nile extending toward the Libyan desert, and were known as the serpents’ (Initiated Adepts) catacombs. It was there that the Sacred Mysteries of the Kuklos Anagkês were performed, and the candidates were acquainted with the inexorable laws traced for every disembodied soul from the beginning of time. These laws were that every reincarnating Entity, casting away its body should pass from this life on earth unto another life on a more subjective plane, a state of bliss, unless the sins of the personality brought on a complete separation of the higher from the lower “principles” ; that the “circle of necessity” or the unavoidable cycle should last a given period (from one thousand to even three thousand years in a few cases), and that when closed the Entity should return to its mummy, i.e., to a new incarnation. The Egyptian and Chaldean teachings were those of the “Secret Doctrine” of the Theosophists. The Mexicans had the same. Their demi-god, Votan, is made to describe in Popol Vu (see de Bourbourg’s work) the ahugero de colubra which is identical with the “Serpent’s Catacombs”, or passage, adding that it ran underground and “terminated at the root of heaven”, into which serpent’s hole, Votan was, admitted because he was himself “a son of the Serpents”, or a Dragon of Wisdom, i.e., an Initiate. The world over, the priest-adepts called themselves “Sons of the Dragon” and “Sons of the Serpent-god”.

Kukkuta Padagiri (Sk.), called also Gurupadagiri, the “teacher’s mountain”. It is situated about seven miles from Gaya, and is famous owing to a persistent report that Arhat Mahâkâsyapa even to this day dwells in its caves.

Kumâra (Sk.). A virgin boy, or young celibate. The first Kumâras are the seven sons of Brahmâ born out of the limbs of the god, in the so-called ninth creation. It is stated that the name was given to them owing to their formal refusal to “procreate their species”, and so they “remained Yogis”, as the legend says.

Kumârabudhi (Sk.). An epithet given to the human “Ego”.

Kumâra guha (Sk.). Lit., “the mysterious, virgin youth”. A title given to Karttikeya owing to his strange origin.

Kumbhaka (Sk.). Retention of breath, according to the regulations of the Hatha Yoga system.

Kumbhakarna (Sk.). The brother of King Ravana of Lanka, the ravisher of Rama’s wife, Sita. As shown in the Ramayana, Kumbhakarna under a curse of Brahmâ slept for six months, and then remained awake one day to fall asleep again, and so on, for many hundreds of years. He was awakened to take part in the war between Rama and Ravana, captured Hanuman, but was finally killed himself.

Kundalini Sakti (Sk.). The power of life; one of the Forces of Nature; that power that generates a certain light in those who sit for spiritual and clairvoyant development. It is a power known only to those who practise concentration and Yoga.

Kunti (Sk.). The wife of Pandu and the mother of the Pandavas, the heroes and the foes of their cousins the Kauravas, in the Bhagavad-gita. It is an allegory of the Spirit-Soul or Buddhi. Some think that Draupadi, the wife in common of the five brothers, the Pandavas, is meant to represent Buddhi: but this is not so, for Draupadi stands for the terrestrial life of the Personality. As such, we see it made little of, allowed to be insulted and even taken into slavery by Yudhishthira, the elder of the Pandavas and her chief lord, who represents the Higher Ego with all its qualifications.

Kurios (Gr.). ‘The Lord, the Master.

Kurus (Sk.) or Kauravas. The foes of the Pandavas in the Bhagavad Gita, on the plain of Kurukshetra. This plain is but a few miles from Delhi.

Kusa (Sk.). A sacred grass used by the ascetics of India, called the grass of lucky augury. It is very occult.

Kusadwipa (Sk.). One of the seven islands named Saptadwipa in the Puranas. (See Secret Doctrine II., p. 404, Note.)

Kusala (Sk.). Merit, one of the two chief constituents of Karma.

Kusînara (Sk.). The city near which Buddha died. It is near Delhi, though some Orientalists would locate it in Assam.

Kuvera (Sk.). God of the Hades, and of wealth like Pluto. The king of the evil demons in the Hindu Pantheon.

Kwan-shai-yîn (Chin.). The male logos of the Northern Buddhists and those of China; the “manifested god”.

Kwan-yin (Chin.). The female logos, the “Mother of Mercy”.

Kwan-yin-tien (Chin.). The heaven where Kwan-yin and the other logoi dwell.

L.—The twelfth letter of the English Alphabet, and also of the Hebrew, where Lamed signifies an Ox-goad, the sign of a form of the god Mars, the generative deity. The letter is an equivalent of number 30. The Hebrew divine name corresponding to L, is Limmud, or Doctus.

Labarum (Lat.). The standard borne before the old Roman Emperors, having an eagle upon it as an emblem of sovereignty. It was a long lance with a cross staff at right angles. Constantine replaced the eagle by the christian monogram with the motto en touty nika which was later interpreted into In hoc signo vinces. As to the monogram, it was a combination of the letter X, Chi, and P, Rho, the initial syllable of Christos. But the Labarum had been an emblem of Etruria ages before Constantine and the Christian era. It was the sign also of Osiris and of Horus who is often represented with the long Latin cross, while the Greek pectoral cross is purely Egyptian. In his “Decline and Fall” Gibbon has exposed the Constantine imposture. The emperor, if he ever had a vision at all, must have seen the Olympian Jupiter, in whose faith he died.

Labro. A Roman saint, solemnly beatified a few years ago. His great holiness consisted in sitting at one of the gates of Rome night and day for forty years, and remaining unwashed through the whole of that time. He was eaten by vermin to his bones.

Labyrinth (Gr.). Egypt had the “celestial labyrinth” whereinto the souls of the departed plunged, and also its type on earth, the famous Labyrinth, a subterranean series of halls and passages with the most extraordinary windings. Herodotus describes it as consisting of 3,000 chambers, half below and half above ground. Even in his day strangers were not allowed into the subterranean portions of it as they contained the sepulchres of the kings who built it and other mysteries. The “Father of History” found the Labyrinth already almost in ruins, yet regarded it even in its state of dilapidation as far more marvellous than the pyramids.

Lactantius. A Church Father, who declared the heliocentric system a heretical doctrine, and that of the antipodes as a “fallacy invented by the devil”.

Ladakh. The upper valley of the Indus, inhabited by Tibetans, but belonging to the Rajah of Cashmere.

Ladder. There are many “ladders” in the mystic philosophies and schemes, all of which were, and some still are, used in the respective mysteries of various nations. The Brahmanical Ladder symbolises the Seven Worlds or Sapta Loka; the Kabalistical Ladder, the seven lower Sephiroth; Jacob’s Ladder is spoken of in the Bible; the Mithraic Ladder is also the “Mysterious Ladder”. Then there are the Rosicrucian, the Scandinavian, the Borsippa Ladders, etc., etc., and finally the Theological Ladder which, according to Brother Kenneth Mackenzie, consists of the four cardinal and three theological virtues.

Lady of the Sycamore. A title of the Egyptian goddess Neїth, who is often represented as appearing in a tree and handing therefrom the fruit of the Tree of Life, as also the Water of Life, to her worshippers.

Laena (Lat.). A robe worn by the Roman Augurs with which they covered their heads while sitting in contemplation on the flight of birds.

Lahgash (Kab.). Secret speech; esoteric incantation; almost identical with the mystical meaning of Vâch.

Lajja (Sk.). “Modesty”; a demi-goddess, daughter of Daksha.

Lakh (Sk.). 100,000 of units, either in specie or anything else.

Lakshana (Sk.). The thirty-two bodily signs of a Buddha, marks by which he is recognised.

Lakshmi (Sk.) “Prosperity”, fortune; the Indian Venus, born of the churning of the ocean by the gods; goddess of beauty and wife of Vishnu.

Lalita Vistara (Sk.). A celebrated biography of Sakya Muni, the Lord Buddha, by Dharmarakcha, A.D. 308.

Lama (Tib.). Written “Clama”. The title, if correctly applied, belongs only to the priests of superior grades, those who can hold office as gurus in the monasteries. Unfortunately every common member of the gedun (clergy) calls himself or allows himself to be called “Lama”. A real Lama is an ordained and thrice ordained Gelong. Since the reform produced by Tsong-ka-pa, many abuses have again crept into the theocracy of the land. There are “Lama-astrologers”, the Chakhan, or common Tsikhan (from tsigan, “gypsy”), and Lama-soothsayers, even such as are allowed to marry and do not belong to the clergy at all. They are very scarce, however, in Eastern Tibet, belonging principally to Western Tibet and to sects which have nought to do with the Gelukpas (yellow caps). Unfortunately, Orientalists knowing next to nothing of the true state of affairs in Tibet, confuse the Choichong, of the Gurmakhayas Lamasery (Lhassa)—the Initiated Esotericists, with the Charlatans and Dugpas (sorcerers) of the Bhon sects. No wonder if—as Schagintweit says in his Buddhism in Tibet—“though the images of King Choichong (the “god of astrology”) are met with in most monasteries of Western Tibet and the Himalayas, my brothers never saw a Lama Choichong”. This is but natural. Neither the Choichong, nor the Kubilkhan (q.v.) overrun the country. As to the “God” or “King Choichong” he is no more a “god of astrology” than any other “Planetary” Dhyan Chohan.

Lamrin (Tib.). A sacred volume of precepts and rules, written by Tson-kha-pa, “for the advancement of knowledge”.

Land of the Eternal Sun. Tradition places it beyond the Arctic regions at the North Pole. It is “the land of the gods where the sun never sets”.

Lang-Shu (Chin.). The title of the translation of Nagarjuna’s work, the Ekasloka-Shastra.

Lanka (Sk.). The ancient name of the island now called Ceylon. It is also the name of a mountain in the South East of Ceylon, where, as tradition says, was a town peopled with demons named Lankapuri. It is described in the epic of the Ramayana as of gigantic extent and magnificence, “with seven broad moats and seven stupendous walls of stone and metal”. Its foundation is attributed to Visva-Karma, who built it for Kuvera, the king of the demons, from whom it was taken by Ravana, the ravisher of Sita. The Bhâgavat Purâna shows Lanka or Ceylon as primarily the summit of Mount Meru, which was broken off by Vayu, god of the wind, and hurled into the ocean. It has since become the seat of the Southern Buddhist Church, the Siamese Sect (headed at present by the High Priest Sumangala), the representation of the purest exoteric Buddhism on this side of the Himalayas.

Lanoo (Sk.). A disciple, the same as “chela”.

Lao-tze (Chin.). A great sage, saint and philosopher who preceded Confucius.

Lapis philosophorum (Lat.). The “Philosopher’s stone”; a mystic term in alchemy, having quite a different meaning from that usually attributed to it.

Lararium (Lat.). An apartment in the house of ancient Romans where the Lares or household gods were preserved, with other family relics.

Lares (Lat.). These were of three kinds: Lares familiares, the guardians and invisible presidents of the family circle; Lares parvi, small idols used for divinations and augury: and Lares præstites, which were supposed to maintain order among the others. The Lares are the manes or ghosts of disembodied people. Apuleius says that the tumulary in scription, To the gods manes who lived, meant that the Soul had been transformed in a Lemure ; and adds that though “the human Soul is a demon that our languages may name genius”, and “is an immortal god though in a certain sense she is born at the same time as the man in whom she is, yet we may say that she dies in the same way that she is born”. Which means in plainer language that Lares and Lemures are simply the shells cast off by the EGO, the high spiritual and immortal Soul, whose shell, and also its astral reflection, the animal Soul, die, whereas the higher Soul prevails throughout eternity.

Larva (Lat.). The animal Soul. Larvæ are the shadows of men that have lived and died.

Law of Retribution. (See “Karma”.)

Laya or Layam (Sk.). From the root Li “to dissolve, to disintegrate” a point of equilibrium (zero-point) in physics and chemistry. In occultism, that point where substance becomes homogeneous and is unable to act or differentiate.

Lebanon (Heb.). A range of mountains in Syria, with a few remnants of the gigantic cedar trees, a forest of which once crowned its summit. Tradition says that it is here, that the timber for King Solomon’s temple was obtained. (See “Druzes”.)

Lemuria. A modern term first used by some naturalists, and now adopted by Theosophists, to indicate a continent that, according to the Secret Doctrine of the East, preceded Atlantis. Its Eastern name would not reveal much to European ears.

Leon, Moses de. The name of a Jewish Rabbi in the Xlllth century, accused of having composed the Zohar which he gave out as the true work of Simeon Ben Jachaї. His full name is given in Myer’s Qabbalah as Rabbi Moses ben-Shem-Tob de Leon, of Spain, the same author proving very cleverly that de Leon was not the author of the Zohar. Few will say he was, but everyone must suspect Moses de Leon of perverting considerably the original Book of Splendour (Zohar). This sin, however, may be shared by him with the Mediæval “Christian Kabalists” and by Knorr von Rosenroth especially. Surely, neither Rabbi Simeon, condemned to death by Titus, nor his son, Rabbi Eliezer, nor his Secretary Rabbi Abba, can be charged with introducing into the Zohar purely Christian dogmas and doctrines invented by the Church Fathers several centuries after the death of the former Rabbis. This would be stretching alleged divine prophecy a little too far.

Lévi, Éliphas. The real name of this learned Kabalist was Abbé Alphonse Louis Constant. Eliphas Lévi Zahed was the author of several works on philosophical magic. Member of the Fratres Lucis (Brothers of Light), he was also once upon a time a priest, an abbé of the Roman Catholic Church, which promptly proceeded to unfrock him, when he acquired fame as a Kabalist. He died some twenty years ago, leaving five famous works —Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856); Histoire de la Magie (1860); La Clef des grands Mystères (1861); Legendes et Symboles (1862); and La Science des Esprits (1865) ; besides some other works of minor importance. His style is extremely light and fascinating; but with a rather too strong characteristic of mockery and paradox in it to be the ideal of a serious Kabalist.

Leviathan. In biblical esotericism, Deity in its double manifestation of good and evil. The meaning may be found in the Zohar (II. 34b.) “Rabbi Shimeon said: The work of the beginning (of ‘creation’) the companions (candidates) study and understand it; but the little ones (the full or perfect Initiates) are those who understand the allusion to the work of the beginning by the Mystery of the Serpent of the Great Sea (to wit) Thanneen, Leviathan.” (See also Qabbalah, by I. Myer.)

Levânah (Heb.). The moon, as a planet and an astrological influence.

Lha (Tib.). Spirits of the highest spheres, whence the name of Lhassa, the residence of the Dalaї-Lama. The title of Lha is often given in Tibet to some Narjols (Saints and Yogi adepts) who have attained great occult powers.

Lhagpa (Tib.). Mercury, the planet.

Lhakang (Tib.). A temple; a crypt, especially a subterranean temple for mystic ceremonies.

Lhamayin (Tib.). Elemental sprites of the lower terrestrial plane. Popular fancy makes of them demons and devils.

Lif (Scand.). Lif and Lifthresir, the only two human beings who were allowed to be present at the “Renewal of the World”. Being “pure and innocent and free from sinful desires, they are permitted to enter the world where peace now reigns”. The Edda shows them hidden in Hoddmimir’s forest dreaming the dreams of childhood while the last conflict was taking place. These two creatures, and the allegory in which they take part, are allusions to the few nations of the Fourth Root Race, who, surviving the great submersion of their continent and the majority of their Race, passed into the Fifth and continued their ethnical evolution in our present Human Race.

Light, Brothers of. This is what the great authority on secret societies, Brother Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie IX., says of this Brotherhood. “A mystic order, Fratres Lucis, established in Florence in 1498. Among the members of this order were Pasqualis, Cagliostro, Swedenborg, St. Martin, Eliphaz Lévi, and many other eminent mystics. Its members were very much persecuted by the Inquisition. It is a small but compact body, the members being spread all over the world.”

Lila (Sk) Sport, literally; or pastime. In the orthodox Hindu Scriptures it is explained that “the acts of the divinity are lila ”, or sport.

Lilith (Heb.). By Jewish tradition a demon who was the first wife of Adam, before Eve was created: she is supposed to have a fatal influence on mothers and newly-born infants. LIL is night, and LILITH is also the owl: and in mediæval works is a synonym of Lamia or female demon. [w.w.w.]

Lil-in (Heb.). The children of Lilith, and their descendants. “Lilith is the Mother of the Shedim and the Muquishim (the ensnarers)”. Every class of the Lil-ins, therefore, are devils in the demonology of the Jews. (See Zohar ii. 268a.)

Limbus Major (Lat.). A term used by Paracelsus to denote primordial (alchemical) matter; “Adam’s earth”.

Linga or Lingam (Sk.). A sign or a symbol of abstract creation. Force becomes the organ of procreation only on this earth. In India there are 12 great Lingams of Siva, some of which are on mountains and rocks, and also in temples. Such is the Kedâresa in the Himalaya, a huge and shapeless mass of rock. In its origin the Lingam had never the gross meaning connected with the phallus, an idea which is altogether of a later date. The symbol in India has the same meaning which it had in Egypt, which is simply that the creative or procreative Force is divine. It also denotes who was the dual Creator—male and female, Siva and his Sakti. The gross and immodest idea connected with the phallus is not Indian but Greek and pre-eminently Jewish. The Biblical Bethels were real priapic stones, the “ Beth-el” (phallus) wherein God dwells. The same symbol was concealed within the ark of the Covenant, the “Holy of Holies”. Therefore the “Lingam” even as a phallus is not “a symbol of Siva” only, but that of every “Creator” or creative god in every nation, including the Israelites and their “God of Abraham and Jacob”.

Linga Purâna (Sk.). A scripture of the Saivas or worshippers of Siva. Therein Maheswara, “the great Lord”, concealed in the Agni Linga explains the ethics of life—duty, virtue, self-sacrifice and finally liberation by and through ascetic life at the end of the Agni Kalpa (the Seventh Round). As Professor Wilson justly observed “the Spirit of the worship (phallic) is as little influenced by the character of the type as can well be imagined. There is nothing like the phallic orgies of antiquity; it is all mystical and spiritual.”

Linga Sharîra (Sk.). The “body”, i.e., the aerial symbol of the body. This term designates the döppelganger or the “astral body” of man or animal. It is the eidolon of the Greeks, the vital and prototypal body; the reflection of the men of flesh. It is born before and dies or fades out, with the disappearance of the last atom of the body.

Lipi (Sk.) To write. See “Lipikas”in Vol. I. of the Secret Doctrine.

Lipikas (Sk.). The celestial recorders, the “Scribes”, those who record every word and deed, said or done by man while on this earth. As Occultism teaches, they are the agents of KARMA—the retributive Law.

Lobha (Sk.). Covetousness: cupidity, a son sprung from Brahmâ in an evil hour.

Lodur (Scand.). The second personage in the trinity of gods in the Eddas of the Norsemen; and the father of the twelve great gods. It is Lodur who endows the first man—made of the ash-tree (Ask), with blood and colour.

Logi (Scand.). Lit., “flame”. This giant with his sons and kindred, made themselves finally known as the authors of every cataclysm and conflagration in heaven or on earth, by letting mortals perceive them in the midst of flames. These giant-fiends were all enemies of man trying to destroy his work wherever they found it. A symbol of the cosmic elements.

Logia (Gr.). The secret discourses and teachings of Jesus contained in the Evangel of Matthew—in the original Hebrew, not the spurious Greek text we have—and preserved by the Ebionites and the Nazarenes in the library collected by Pamphilus, at Cæsarea. This “Evangel” called by many writers “the genuine Gospel of Matthew”, was used according to (St.) Jerome, by the Nazarenes and Ebionites of Beroea, Syria, in his own day (4th century). Like the Aporrheta or secret discourses, of the Mysteries, these Logia could only be understood with a key. Sent by the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, Jerome, after having obtained permission, translated them, but found it “a difficult task” (truly so!) to reconcile the text of the “genuine” with that of the spurious Greek gospel he was acquainted with.
(See Isis Unveiled II., 180 et seq.)

Logos (Gr.). The manifested deity with every nation and people; the outward expression, or the effect of the cause which is ever concealed. Thus, speech is the Logos of thought; hence it is aptly translated by the “Verbum” and “Word” in its metaphysical sense.

Lohitanga (Sk.). The planet, Mars.

Loka (Sk.). A region or circumscribed place. In metaphysics, a world or sphere or plane. The Purânas in India speak incessantly of seven and fourteen Lokas, above, and below our earth; of heavens and hells,

Loka Chakshub (Sk.). The “Eye of the World”; a title of the Sun, Surya.

Loka Pâlas (Sk.). The supporters, rulers and guardians of the world. The deities (planetary gods) which preside over the eight cardinal points, among which are the Tchatur (Four) Maharajahs.

Loki (Scand.). The Scandinavian Evil Spirit exoterically. In esoteric philosophy “an opposing power” only because differentiating from primordial harmony. In the Edda, he is the father of the terrible Fenris Wolf, and of the Midgard Snake. By blood he is the brother of Odin, the good and valiant god; but in nature he is his opposite. Loki Odin is simply two in one. As Odin is, in one sense, vital heat, so is Loki the symbol of the passions produced by the intensity of the former.

Loreley. The German copy of the Scandinavian “Lake Maiden”. Undine is one of the names given to these maidens, who are known in exoteric Magic and Occultism as the Water-Elementals.

Lost Word (Masonic). It ought to stand as “lost words” and lost secrets, in general, for that which is termed the lost “Word” is no word at all, as in the case of the Ineffable Name (q.v.) The Royal Arch Degree in Masonry, has been “in search of it” since it was founded. But the “dead”—-especially those murdered—do not speak; and were even “the Widow’s Son” to come back to life “materialized”, he could hardly reveal that which never existed in the form in which it is now taught. The SHEMHAMPHORASH (the separated name, through the power of which according to his detractors, Jeshu Ben Pandira is said to have wrought his miracles, after stealing it from the Temple)—whether derived from the “self existent substance” of Tetragrammaton, or not, can never be a substitute, for the lost LOGOS of divine magic.

Lotus (Gr.). A most occult plant, sacred in Egypt, India and else where; called “the child of the Universe bearing the likeness of its mother in its bosom”. There was a time “when the world was a golden lotus” (padma) says the allegory. A great variety of these plants, from the majestic Indian lotus, down to the marsh-lotus (bird’s foot trefoil) and the Grecian “Dioscoridis”, is eaten at Crete and other islands. It is a species of nymphala, first introduced from India to Egypt to which it was-not indigenous. See the text of Archaic Symbolism in the Appendix Viii. “The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol”.

Lotus, Lord of the. A title applied to the various creative gods, as also to the Lords of the Universe of which this plant is the symbol. (“See Lotus”.)

Love Feasts, Agapae (Gr.). These banquets of charity held by the earliest Christians were founded at Rome by Clemens, in the reign of Domitian. Professor A. Kestner’s The Agapæ or the Secret World Society (Wiltbund) of the Primitive Christians” (published 1819 at Jena) speaks of these Love Feasts as “having a hierarchical constitution, and a groundwork of Masonic symbolism and Mysteries” ; and shows a direct connection between the old Agapæ and the Table Lodges or Banquets of the Freemasons. Having, however, exiled from their suppers the “holy kiss” and women, the banquets of the latter are rather “drinking” than “love” feasts. The early Agapæ were certainly the same as the Phallica, which “were once as pure as the Love Feasts of early Christians” as Mr. Bonwick very justly remarks, “though like them rapidly degenerating into licentiousness”. (Eg. Bel. and Mod. Thought, p. 260.)

Lower Face or Lower Countenance (Kab.). A term applied to Microprosopus, as that of ”Higher Face” is to Macroprosopus. The two are identical with Long Face and Short Face.

Lubara (Chald.). The god of Pestilence and. Disease.

Lucifer (Lat.). The planet Venus, as the bright “Morning Star”. Before Milton, Lucifer had never been a name of the Devil. Quite the reverse, since the Christian Saviour is made to say of himself in Revelations (xvi. 22.) “I am . . . the bright morning star” or Lucifer. One of the early Popes of Rome bore that name; and there was even a Christian sect in the fourth century which was called the Luciferians.

Lully, Raymond. An alchemist, adept and philosopher, born in the 13th century, on the island of Majorca. It is claimed for him that, in a moment of need, he made for King Edward III. of England several millions of gold “rose nobles”, and thus helped him to carry on war victoriously. He founded several colleges for the study of Oriental languages, and Cardinal Ximenes was one of his patrons and held him in great esteem, as also Pope John XXI. He died in 1314, at a good old age. Literature has preserved many wild stories about Raymond Lully, which would form a most extraordinary romance. He was the elder son of the Seneshal of Majorca and inherited great wealth from his father.

Lunar Gods. Called in India the Fathers, “Pitris” or the lunar ancestors. They are subdivided, like the rest, into seven classes or Hierarchies, In Egypt although the moon received less worship than in Chaldea or India, still Isis stands as the representative of Luna-Lunus, “the celestial Hermaphrodite”. Strange enough while the modern connect the moon only with lunacy and generation, the ancient nations, who knew better, have, individually and collectively, connected their “wisdom gods” with it. Thus in Egypt the lunar gods are Thoth-Hermes and Chons; in India it is Budha, the Son of Soma, the moon; in Chaldea Nebo is the lunar god of Secret Wisdom, etc., etc. The wife of Thoth, Sifix, the lunar goddess, holds a pole with five rays or the five-pointed star, symbol of man, the Microcosm, in distinction from the Septenary Macrocosm. As in all theogonies a goddess precedes a god, on the principle most likely that the chick can hardly precede its egg, in Chaldea the moon was held as older and more venerable than the Sun, because, as they said, darkness precedes light at every periodical rebirth (or “creation”) of the universe. Osiris although connected with the Sun and a Solar god is, nevertheless, born on Mount Sinai, because Sin is the Chaldeo-Assyrian word for the moon; so was Dio-Nysos, god of Nyssi or Nisi, which latter appelation was that of Sinai in Egypt, where it was called Mount Nissa. The crescent is not—as proven by many writers—an ensign of the Turks, but was adopted by Christians for their symbol before the Mahommedans. For ages the crescent was the emblem of the Chaldean Astarte, the Egyptian Isis, and the Greek Diana, all of them Queens of Heaven, and finally became the emblem of Mary the Virgin. “The Greek Christian Empire of Constantinople held it as their palladium. Upon the conquest by the Turks, the Sultan adopted it . . . and since that, the crescent has been made to oppose the idea of the cross”. (Eg. Belief.)

Lupercalia (Lat.). Magnificent popular festivals celebrated in ancient Rome on February 15th in honour of the God Pan, during which the Luperci, the most ancient and respectable among the sacerdotal functionaries, sacrificed two goats and a dog, and two of the most illustrious youths were compelled to run about the city naked (except the loins) whipping all those whom they met. Pope Gelasius abolished the Lupercalia in 496, but substituted for them on the same day the procession of lighted candles.

Luxor (0cc.). A compound word from lux (light) and aur (fire), thus meaning the “Light of (divine) Fire.”

Luxor, Brotherhood of. A certain Brotherhood of mystics. Its name had far better never have been divulged, as it led a great number of well-meaning people into being deceived, and relieved of their money by a certain bogus Mystic Society speculators, born in Europe, only to be exposed and fly to America. The name is derived from the ancient Lookshur in Beloochistan, lying between Bela and Kedjee. The order is very ancient and the most secret of all. It is useless to repeat that its members disclaim all connection with the “H.B. of L.”, and the tutti quanti of commercial mystics, whether from Glasgow or Boston.

Lycanthropy (Gr.). Physiologically, a disease or mania, during which a person imagines he is a wolf, and acts as such. Occultly, it means the same as “were-wolf”, the psychological faculty of certain sorcerers to appear as wolves. Voltaire states that in the district of Jura, in two years between 1598 and 1600, over 600 lycanthropes were put to death by a too Christian judge. This does not mean that Shepherds accused of sorcery, and seen as wolves, had indeed the power of changing themselves physically into such; but simply that they had the hypnotizing power of making people (or those they regarded as enemies), believe they saw a wolf when there was none in fact. The exercise of such power is truly sorcery. “Demoniacal” possession is true at bottom, minus the devils of Christian theology. But this is no place for a long disquisition upon occult mysteries and magic powers.

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