Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 - 1891

   

 

THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY

BY

H. P. BLAVATSKY

First Published 1892

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M  

 

M—The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew and of the English alphabets, and the twenty-fourth of the Arabic. As a Roman numeral, this letter stands for 1,000, and with a dash on it (M) signifies one million. In the Hebrew alphabet Mem symbolized water, and as a numeral is equivalent to 40. The Sanskrit ma is equivalent to number 5, and is also connected with water through the sign of the Zodiac, called Makâra (q.v.). Moreover, in the Hebrew and Latin numerals the m,  stands “as the definite numeral for an indeterminate number”(Mackenzie’s Mason. Cyc.), and “the Hebrew sacred name of God app]ied to this letter is Meborach, Benedictus.” With the Esotericists the M is the symbol of the Higher Ego—Manas, Mind.

 

Mâ (Sk.). Lit., “five”. A name of Lakshmi.

 

Ma, Mut (Eg.). The goddess of the lower world, another form of Isis, as she is nature, the eternal mother. She was the sovereign and Ruler of the North wind, the precursor of the overflow of the Nile, and thus called “the opener of the nostrils of the living”. She is represented offering the ankh, or cross, emblem of physical life to her worshippers, and is called the “Lady of Heaven”.

 

Machagistia. Magic, as once taught in Persia and Chaldea, and raised in its occult practices into a religio-magianism. Plato, speaking of Machagistia, or Magianism, remarks that it is the purest form of the worship of things divine.

 

Macrocosm (Gr.). The “Great Universe” literally, or Kosmos.

 

Macroprosopus (Gr.). ‘A Kabalistic term, made of a compound Greek word: meaning the Vast or Great Countenance (See “Kabalistic Faces”); a title of Kether, the Crown, the highest Sephira. It is the name of the Universe, called Arikh-Anpin, the totality of that of which Microprosopus or Zauir-Anpin
“the lesser countenance”, is the part and antithesis. In its high or abstract metaphysical sense, Microprosopus is Adam Kadmon, the vehicle of Ain-Suph, and the crown of the Sephirothal Tree, though since Sephira and Adam Kadmon are in fact one under two aspects, it comes to the same thing. Interpretations are many, and they differ.

 

Madhasadana or Madhu-Sűdana (Sk.). “Slayer of Madhu” (a demon), a title of Krishna from his killing the latter.

 

Mâdhava (Sk). (1) A name of Vishnu or Krishna; (2) The month of April ; (3) A title of Lakshmi
when written Madhavi.

 

Madhya (Sk.). Ten thousand billions.

 

Madhyama (Sk.). Used of something beginningless and endless. Thus Vâch (Sound, the female Logos, or the female counterpart of Brahmâ is said to exist in several states, one of which is that of Mâdhyama, which is equivalent to saying that Vâch is eternal in one sense “the Word (Vâch) was with God, and in God”, for the two are one.

 

Mâdhyamikas (Sk.). A sect mentioned in the Vishnu Purâna. Agreeably to the Orientalists, a
“Buddhist sect, which is an anachronism. It was probably at first a sect of Hindu atheists. A later school of that name, teaching a system of sophistic nihilism, that reduces every proposition into a thesis and its antithesis, and then denies both, has been started in Tibet and China. It adopts a few principles of Nâgârjuna, who was one of the founders of the esoteric Mahayâna systems, not their exoteric travesties. The allegory that regarded Nâgârjuna’s “Paramartha” as a gift from the Nâgas (Serpents) shows that he received his teachings from the secret school of adepts, and that the real tenets are therefore kept secret.

 

Maga (Sk.). The priests of the Sun, mentioned in the Vishnu Purâna. They are the later Magi of Chaldea and Iran, the forefathers of the modern Parsis.

 

Magadha (Sk.). An ancient country in India, under Buddhist Kings.

 

Mage, or Magian. From Mag or Maha. The word is the root of the word magician. The Maha-âtma (the great Soul or Spirit) in India had its priests in the pre-Vedic times. The Magians were priests of the fire-god; we find them among the Assyrians and Babylonians, as well as among the Persian fire-worshippers. The three Magi, also denominated kings, that are said to have made gifts of gold, incense and myrrh to the infant Jesus, were fire-worshippers like the rest, and astrologers ; for they saw his star. The high priest of the Parsis, at Surat, is called Mobed. Others derived the name from Megh; Meh-ab signifying some thing grand and noble. Zoroaster’s disciples were called Meghestom, according to Kleuker.

 

Magi (Lat.). The name of the ancient hereditary priests and learned adepts in Persia and Media, a word derived from Mâha great, which became later mog or mag, a priest in Pehlevi. Porphyry describes them (Abst. iv. 16) as “The learned men who are engaged among the Persians in the service of the Deity are called Magi”, and Suidas informs us that “among the Persians the lovers of wisdom (philalethai) are called Magi” The Zendavesta (ii. 171, 261) divides them into three degrees : (1) The Herbeds or “ Noviciates” ; (2) Mobeds or “ Masters” ; (3) Destur Mobeds, or Perfect Masters”. The Chaldees had similar colleges, as also the Egyptians, Destur Mobeds being identical with the Hierophants of the mysteries, as practised in Greece and Egypt.

 

Magic. The great “Science”. According to Deveria and other Orientalists, “magic was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion” by the oldest and most civilized and learned nations. The Egyptians, for instance, were one of the most sincerely religious nations, as were and still are the Hindus. “Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods”, said Plato. Could then a nation, which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been deceived for so long a time. And is it likely that generations upon generations of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom, holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people (or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in “ miracles” ? Fanatics, we are told, will do anything to enforce belief in their god or idols. To this we reply: in such case, Brahmans and Egyptian Rekhget-amens (q.v.) or Hierophants would not have popularized belief in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it : “Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity......and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode”. Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature. Ancient and medićval mystics divided magic into three classes—Theurgia, Goëtia and natural Magic. “Theurgia has long since been appropriated as the peculiar sphere of the theosophists and metaphysicians”, says Kenneth Mackenzie. Goëtia is black magic, and “natural (or white) magic has risen with healing in its wings to the proud position of an exact and progressive study”. The comments added by our late learned Brother are remarkable. “The realistic desires of modern times have contributed to bring magic into disrepute and ridicule. . . . Faith (in one’s own self) is an essential element in magic, and existed long before other ideas which presume its pre-existence. It is said that it takes a wise man to make a fool; and a man’s ideas must be exalted almost to madness, i.e., his brain susceptibilities must be increased far beyond the low, miserable status of modern civilization, before he can become a true magician; (for) a pursuit of this science implies a certain amount of isolation and an abnegation of Self ”. A very great isolation, certainly, the achievement of which constitutes a wonderful phenomenon, a miracle in itself. Withal magic is not something supernatural. As explained by Jamblichus, “they through the sacerdotal theurgy announce that they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal Essences, and to those that are established above fate, viz., to god and the demiurgus: neither employing matter, nor assuming any other things besides, except the observation of a sensible time”. Already some are beginning to recognise the existence of subtle powers and influences in nature of which they have hitherto known nought. But as Dr. Carter Blake truly remarks, “the nineteenth century is not that which has observed the genesis of new, nor the completion of old, methods of thought”; to which Mr. Bonwick adds that “if the ancients knew but little of our mode of investigations into the secrets of nature, we know still less of their mode of research”.

 

Magic, White, or “Beneficent Magic”, so-called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition, or lucre, and bent only on doing good to the world in general, and one’s neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one’s abnormal powers for the gratification of self, makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.

 

Magic, Black. (Vide Supra.)

 

Magician. This term, once a title of renown and distinction, has come to he wholly perverted from its true meaning. Once the synonym of all that was honourable and reverent, of a possessor of learning and wisdom, it has become degraded into an epithet to designate- one who is a pretender and a juggler; a charlatan, in short, or one who has “sold his soul to the Evil One”, who misuses his knowledge, and employs it for low and dangerous uses, according to the teachings of the clergy, and a mass of superstitious fools who believe the magician a sorcerer and an “Enchanter”. The word is derived from Magh, Mah in Sanskrit Mâha—great; a man well versed in esoteric knowledge. (Isis Unveiled.)

 

Magna Mater (Lat.). “Great Mother”. A title given in days of old, to all the chief goddesses of the nations, such as Diana of Ephesus, Isis, Mauth, and many others.

 

Magnes. An expression used by Paracelsus and the medićval Theosophists. It is the spirit of light, or Akâsa. A word much used by the medićval Alchemists.

 

Magnetic Masonry. Also called “Iatric” masonry. It is described as a Brotherhood of Healers (from iatrikę a Greek word meaning “the art of healing”), and is greatly used by the “Brothers of Light ”as Kenneth Mackenzie states in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia. There appears to be a tradition in some secret Masonic works—so says Ragon at any rate, the great Masonic authority—to the effect that there was a Masonic degree called the Oracle of Cos, “instituted in the eighteenth century B.c., from the fact that Cos was the birthplace of Hippocrates”. The iatrikę was a distinct characteristic of the priests who took charge of the patients in the ancient Asclepia, the temples where the god Asclepios (Ćsculapius) was said to heal the sick and the lame.

 

Magnetism. A Force in nature and in man. When it is the former, it is an agent which gives rise to the various phenomena of attraction, of polarity, etc. When the latter, it becomes “animal” magnetism, in contradistinction to cosmic, and terrestrial magnetism.

 

Magnetism, Animal. While official science calls it a “supposed” agent, and utterly rejects its actuality, the teeming millions of antiquity and of the now living Asiatic nations, Occultists, Theosophists, Spiritualists, and Mystics of every kind and description proclaim it as a well established fact. Animal magnetism is a fluid, an emanation. Some people can emit it for curative purposes through their eyes and the tips of their fingers, while the rest of all creatures, mankind, animals and even every inanimate object, emanate it either as an aura, or a varying light, and that whether consciously or not. When acted upon by Contact: with a patient or by the will of a human operator it is called “Mesmerism” (q.v.).

 

Magnum Opus (Lat.). In Alchemy the final completion, the “Great Labour” or Grand Śuvre; the production of the “Philosopher’s Stone” and “Elixir of Life” which, though not by far the myth some sceptics would have it, has yet to be accepted symbolically, and is full of mystic meaning.

 

Magus (Lat.). in the New Testament it means a Sage, a wise man of the Chaldeans; it is in English often used for a Magician, any wonder-worker; in the Rosicrucian Society it is the title of the highest members, the IXth grade; the Supreme Magus is the Head of the Order in the “Outer”; the Magi of the “Inner” are unknown except to those of the VIIIth grade. [w.w.w.]

 

Mahâ Buddhi (Sk.). Mahat. The Intelligent Soul of the World. The seven Prakritis or seven “natures” or planes, are counted from Mahâbuddhi downwards.

 

Mahâ Chohan (Sk.). The chief of a spiritual Hierarchy, or of a school of Occultism; the head of the trans-Himalayan mystics.

 

Mahâ Deva (Sk.). Lit., “great god”; a title of Siva.

 

Mahâ Guru (Sk.). Lit., “great teacher”. The Initiator.

 

Mahâjwala (Sk.). A certain hell.

 

Mahâ Kâla (Sk.). “Great Time”. A name of Siva as the “Destroyer”, and of Vishnu as the “Preserver”.

 

Mahâ Kalpa (Sk.). The “great age”.

 

Mahâ Manvantara (Sk.). Lit., the great interludes between the “Manus”. The period of universal activity. Manvantara implying here simply a period of activity, as opposed to Pralaya, or rest—without reference to the length of the cycle.

 

Mahâ Mâyâ (Sk.). The great illusion of manifestation. This universe, and all in it in their mutual relation, is called the great Illusion or Mahâmâyâ It is also the usual title given to Gautama the Buddha’s Immaculate Mother—Mayâdęvi, or the “Great Mystery”, as she is called by the Mystics.

 

Mahâ Pralaya (Sk.). The opposite of Mahâmanvantara, literally “the great Dissolution”, the “Night” following the “Day of Brahmâ”. It is the great rest and sleep of all nature after a period of active manifestation; orthodox Christians would refer to it as the “Destruction of the World”.

 

Mahâ Parinibbâna Sutta (Pali.). One of the most authoritative of the Buddhist sacred writings.

 

Mahâ Purusha (Sk.). Supreme or Great Spirit. A title of Vishnu.

 

Mahâ Râjikâs (Sk.). A gana or class of gods 236 in number. Certain Forces in esoteric teachings.

 

Mahâ Sűnyata (Sk.). Space, or eternal law; the great void or chaos.

 

Mahâ Vidyâ (Sk.). The great esoteric science. The highest Initiates alone are in possession of this science, which embraces almost universal knowledge.

 

Mahâ Yogin (Sk.). The “great ascetic”. A title of Siva.

 

Mahâ Yuga (Sk.). The aggregate of four Yugas or ages, of 4,320,000 solar years; a “Day of Brahmâ”, in the Brahmanical system ; lit., “the great age”.

 

Mahâbhârata (Sk.). Lit., the “great war”; the celebrated epic poem of India (probably the longest poem in the world) which includes both the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gîtâ “the Song Celestial”. No two Orientalists agree as to its date. But it is undeniably extremely ancient.

 

Mahâbhâratian period. According to the best Hindu Commentators and Swami Dayanand Saraswati, 5,000 years B.C.

 

Mahâbhashya (Sk.). The great commentary on Pânini’s grammar by Patanjali.

 

Mahâbhautic (Sk.). Belonging to the Macrocosmic principles.

 

Mahâbhutas (Sk.). Gross elementary principles of matter.

 

Mahârâjahs, The Four (Sk.). The four great Karmic deities with the Northern Buddhists placed at the four cardinal points to watch mankind.

 

Mahar Loka (Sk.). A region wherein dwell the Munis or “Saints” during Pralaya; according to the Purânic accounts. It is the usual abode of Bhrigâ, a Prajâpati (Progenitor) and a Rishi, one of the seven who are said to be co-existent with Brahmâ.

 

Mahâsura (Sk.). The great Asura; exoterically—Satan, esoterically—the great god.

 

Mahat (Sk.). Lit., “The great one”. The first principle of Universal Intelligence and Consciousness. In the Purânic philosophy the first product of root-nature or Pradhâna (the same as Mulaprakriti); the producer of Manas the thinking principle, and of Ahankâra, egotism or the feeling of “I am I” (in the lower Manas).

 

Mahâtma. Lit., “great soul”. An adept of the highest order. Exalted beings who, having attained to the mastery over their lower principles are thus living unimpeded by the “man of flesh”, and are in possession of knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arhats.

 

Mâhâtmya (Sk.). “Magnanimity”, a legend of a shrine, or any holy place.

 

Mahatowarat (Sk.). Used of Parabrahm; greater than the greatest spheres.

 

Mahattattwa (Sk). The first of the seven creations called respectively in the Purânas—Mahattattwa, Chűta, Indriya, Mukhya, Tiryaksrotas, Urdhwasrotas and Arvaksrotas.

 

Mahoraga (Sk.). Mahâ uraga, “great serpent”——Sesha or any others.

 

Mahavanso (Pali.). A Buddhist historical work written by Bhikshu Mohânâma, the uncle of King Dhatusma. An authority on the history of Buddhism and its spread in the island of Ceylon.

 

Mahayâna (Pal.). A school; lit., “the great vehicle”. A mystical system founded by Nâgârjuna. Its books were written in the second century B.C.

 

Maitreya Buddha (Sk.). The same as the Kalki Avatar of Vishnu (the “White Horse” Avatar), and of Sosiosh and other Messiahs. The only difference lies in the dates of their appearances. Thus, while Vishnu is expected to appear on his white horse at the end of the present Kali Yuga age “for  the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of creation and the restoration of purity”, Maitreya is expected earlier. Exoteric or popular teaching making slight variations on the esoteric doctrine states that Sakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) visited him in Tushita (a celestial abode) and commissioned him to issue thence on earth as his successor at the expiration of five thousand years after his (Buddha’s) death. This would be in less than 3,000 years hence. Esoteric philosophy teaches that the next Buddha will appear during the seventh (sub) race of this Round. The fact is that Maitreya was a follower of Buddha, a well-known Arhat, though not his direct disciple, and that he was the founder of an esoteric philosophical school. As shown by Eitel (Sanskrit-Chinese Dict.), “statues were erected in his honour as early as B.C. 350”.

 

Makâra (Sk.). “The Crocodile.” In Europe the same as Capricorn; the tenth sign of the Zodiac. Esoterically, a mystic class of devas. With the Hindus, the vehicle of Varuna, the water-god.

 

Makâra Ketu (Sk.). A name of Kâma, the Hindu god of love and desire.

 

Makâram or Panchakaram (Sk.). In occult symbology a pentagon, the five-pointed star, the five limbs, or extremities, of man. Very mystical.

 

Makâras (Sk.). The five M’s of the Tantrikas. (See “Tantra”).

 

Malachim (Heb.). The messengers or angels.

 

Malkuth (Heb.). The Kingdom, the tenth Sephira, corresponding to the final H (hé) of the Tetragrammaton or IHVH. It is the Inferior Mother, the Bride of the Microprosopus (q.v.); also called the “Queen” It is, in one sense, the Shekinah. [w.w.w.]

 

Mamitu (Chald.). The goddess of Fate. A kind of Nemesis.

 

Manas (Sk.). Lit., “the mind”, the mental faculty which makes of man an intelligent and moral being, and distinguishes him from the mere animal; a synonym of Mahat. Esoterically, however, it means, when unqualified, the Higher EGO, or the sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called by Theosophists Buddhi-Manas or the Spiritual Soul in contradistinction to its human reflection—Kâma-Manas.

 

Manas, Kâma (Sk.). Lit., “the mind of desire.” With the Buddhists it is the sixth of the Chadâyatana (q.v.), or the six organs of knowledge, hence the highest of these, synthesized by the seventh called Klichta, the spiritual perception of that which defiles this (lower) Manas, or the “Human-animal Soul”, as the Occultists term it. While the Higher Manas or the Ego is directly related to Vijnâna (the 10th of the 12 Nidânas)—which is the perfect knowledge of all forms of knowledge, whether relating to object or subject in the nidânic concatenation of causes and effects; the lower, the Kâma Manas is but one of the Indriya or organs (roots) of Sense. Very little can be said of the dual Manas here, as the doctrine that treats of it, is correctly stated only in esoteric works. Its mention can thus be only very superficial.

 

Manas Sanyama (Sk.). Perfect concentration of the mind, and control over it, during Yoga practices.

 

Manas Taijasi (Sk.). Lit., the “radiant” Manas; a state of the Higher Ego, which only high metaphysicians are able to realize and comprehend.

 

Mânasa or Manaswin (Sk.). “The efflux of the divine mind,” and explained as meaning that this efflux signifies the manasa or divine sons of Brahmâ-Virâj. Nilakantha who is the authority for this statement, further explains the term “manasa” by manomâtrasarira. These Manasa are the Arupa or incorporeal sons of the Prajâpati Virâj, in another version. But as Arjuna Misra identifies Virâj with Brahmâ, and as Brahmâ is Mahat, the universal mind, the exoteric blind becomes plain. The Pitris are identical with the Kumâra, the Vairaja, the Manasa-Putra (mind sons), and are finally identified with the human “Egos”.

 

Mânasa Dhyânis (Sk.). The highest Pitris in the Purânas; the Agnishwatthas, or Solar Ancestors of Man, those who made of Man a rational being, by incarnating in the senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of the men of the third race. (See Vol. II. of Secret Doctrine.)

 

Mânasas (Sk.). Those who endowed humanity with manas or intelligence, the immortal EGOS in men. (See “Manas”.)

 

Manasasarovara (Sk.). Phonetically pronounced Mansoravara. A sacred lake in Tibet, in the Himalayas, also called Anavatapta. Manasasarovara is the name of the tutelary deity of that lake and, according to popular folk-lore, is said to be a nâga, a “serpent”. This, translated esoterically, means a great adept, a sage. The lake is a great place of yearly pilgrimage for the Hindus, as the Vedas are claimed to have been written on its shores.

 

Mânava (Sk.). A land of ancient India; a Kalpa or Cycle. The name of a weapon used by Râma; meaning  of “Manu” as,―
 

Mânava Dharma Shâstra—is the ancient code of law of, or by Manu.
 

Mandala (Sk.). A circle; also the ten divisions of the Vedas.

 

Mandara (Sk.). The mountain used by the gods as a stick to churn the ocean of milk in the Purânas.

 

Mandâkinî (Sk.). The heavenly Ganga or Ganges.

 

Mandragora (Gr.). A plant whose root has the human form. In Occultism it is used by black magicians for various illicit objects, and some of the “left-hand” Occultists make homunculi with it. It is commonly called mandrake, and is supposed to cry out when pulled out of the ground.

 

Manes or Manus (Lat.). Benevolent “gods”, i.e., “spooks” of the lower world (Kâmaloka); the deified shades of the dead—of the ancient profane, and the “materialized”ghosts of the modern Spiritualists, believed to be the souls of the departed, whereas, in truth, they are only their empty shells, or images.

 

Manichćans (Lat.). A sect of the third century which believed in two eternal principles of good and evil; the former furnishing mankind with souls, and the latter with bodies. This sect was founded by a certain half-Christian mystic named Mani, who gave himself out as the expected “Comforter”, the Messiah and Christ. Many centuries later, after the sect was dead, a Brotherhood arose, calling itself the “Manichees”, of a masonic character with several degrees of initiation. Their ideas were Kabalistic, but were misunderstood.

 

Mano (Gnost.). The Lord of Light. Rex Lucis, in the Codex Nazarćus. He is the Second “Life” of the second or manifested trinity “the heavenly life and light, and older than the architect of heaven and earth” (Cod. Naz., Vol. I. p. 145). These trinities are as follows. The Supreme Lord of splendour and of light, luminous and refulgent, before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; and Lord Jordan—the spirit, the living water of grace (Ibid. II pp. 45-51). He is the one through whom alone we can be saved. These three constitute the trinity in abscondito. The second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; and the second Ferho is the King of Light—MANO. The second life is Ish Amon (Pleroma), the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the Jordanus Maximus—the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living water, who is the “spiritual Jordan”. (Ibid. II., p. 211.) The third life, which is produced by the other two, is ABATUR (Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit “Aged of the Aged”, the Ancient “Senem sui obtegentem et grandćvum mundi.” This latter third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call llda-Baoth (q.v.), though Fetahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the “dark water”. Sophia Achamoth also begets her Son Ilda-Baoth the Demiurge, by looking into the chaos of matter. But the Lord Mano, “the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii”, is higher than the Father, in this kabalistic Codex—one is purely spiritual, the other material. So, for instance, while Abatur’s “only-begotten” one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, the “Lord of Celsitude”, who is the son of Him, who is “the Father of all who preach the Gospel”, produces also an “only-begotten” one, the Lord Lehdaio, “a just Lord”. He is the Christos, the anointed, who pours out the “grace” of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest Crown. (See for further information Isis Unveiled. Vol. II., pp. 227, et. seq.)

 

Manodhâtu (Sk.). Lit., the “World of the mind”, meaning not only all our mental faculties, but also one of the divisions of the plane of mind. Each human being has his Manodhatu or plane of thought
proportionate with the degree of his intellect and his mental faculties, beyond which he can go only by studying and developing his higher spiritual faculties in one of the higher spheres of thought.

 

Manomaya Kosha (Sk.). A Vedantic term, meaning the Sheath (Kosha) of the Manomaya, an equivalent for fourth and fifth “principles” in man. In esoteric philosophy this “Kosha” corresponds to the dual Manas.

 

Manticism, or Mantic Frenzy. During this state was developed the gift of prophecy. The two words are nearly synonymous. One was as honoured as the other. Pythagoras and Plato held it in high esteem, and Socrates advised his disciples to study Manticism. The Church Fathers, who condemned so severely the mantic frenzy in Pagan priests and Pythić, were not above applying it to their own uses. The Montanists, who took their name from Montanus, a bishop of Phrygia, who was considered divinely inspired, contended with the mavnteiz (manteis) or prophets. “Tertullian, Augustine, and the martyrs of Carthage, were of the number”, says the author of Prophecy, Ancient and Modern. “The Montanists seem to have resembled the Bacchantes in the wild enthusiasm that characterized their orgies,” he adds. There is a diversity of opinion as to the origin of the word Manticism. There was the famous Mantis the Seer, in the days of Melampus and Prśtus King of Argos; and there was Manto, the daughter of the prophet of Thebes, herself a prophetess. Cicero describes prophecy and mantic frenzy, by saying, that “in the inner recesses of the mind is divine prophecy hidden and confined, a divine impulse, which when it burns more vividly is called furor”, frenzy. (Isis Unveiled.)

 

Mantra period (Sk.). One of the four periods into which Vedic literature has been divided.

 

 Mantra Shâstra (Sk.). Brahmanical writings on the occult science of incantations.

                                                                                           

Mantra Tantra Shâstras (Sk.). Works on incantations, but specially on magic.

 

Mantras (Sk.). Verses from the Vedic works, used as incantations and charms. By Mantras are meant all those portions of the Vedas which are distinct from the Brahmanas, or their interpretation.

 

Mantrika Sakti (Sk.). The power, or the occult potency of mystic words, sounds, numbers or letters in these Mantras.

 

Manjusri (Tib.). The God of Wisdom. In Esoteric philosophy a certain Dhyan Chohan.

 

Manu (Sk.). The great Indian legislator. The name comes from the Sanskrit root man “to think”—mankind really, but stands for Swâyambhuva, the first of the Manus, who started from Swâyambhu, “the self-existent” hence the Logos, and the progenitor of mankind. Manu is the first Legislator, almost a Divine Being.

 

Manu Swâyambhuva (Sk). The heavenly man. Adam-Kadmon, the synthesis of the fourteen Manus.

 

Manus (Sk.). The fourteen Manus are the patrons or guardians of the race cycles in a Manvantara, or Day of Brahmâ. The primeval Manus are seven, they become fourteen in the Purânas.

 

Manushi or Manushi Buddhas (Sk.). Human Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or incarnated Dhyan Chohans.

 

Manvantara (Sk.). A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya (dissolution, or rest), applied to various cycles, especially to a Day of Brahmâ, 4,320,000,000 Solar years—and to the reign of one Manu— 308,448,000. (See Vol. II. of the Secret Doctrine, p. 68 et. seq.) Lit., Manuantara—between Manus.

 

Maquom (Chald.) “A secret place” in the phraseology of the Zohar, a concealed spot, whether referring to a sacred shrine in a temple, to the “Womb of the World”, or the human womb. A Kabalistic term.

 

Mâra (Sk.). The god of Temptation, the Seducer who tried to turn away Buddha from his PATH. He is called the “Destroyer” and “Death” (of the Soul). One of the names of Kâma, God of love.

 

Marabut. A Mahometan pilgrim who has been to Mekka, a saint. After his death his body is placed in an open sepulchre built above ground, like other buildings, but in the middle of the streets and public places of populated cities. Placed inside the small and only room of the tomb (and several such public sarcophagi of brick and mortar may be seen to this day in the streets and squares of Cairo), the devotion of the way farers keeps a lamp ever burning at his head. The tombs of some of these marabuts are very famous for the miracles they are alleged to perform.

 

Marcionites. An ancient Gnostic Sect founded by Marcion who was a devout Christian as long as no dogma of human creation came to mar the purely transcendental, and metaphysical concepts, and the original beliefs of the early Christians. Such primitive beliefs were those of Marcion. He denied the historical facts (as now found in the Gospels) of Christ’s birth, incarnation and passion, and also the resurrection of the body of Jesus, maintaining that such statements were simply the carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolism, and a degradation of the true spiritual idea. Along with all the other Gnostics, Marcion accused the “Church Fathers”, as Irenćus himself complains, of “framing their (Christian) doctrine according to the capacity of their hearers, fabling blind things for the blind, according to their blindness; for the dull, according to their dulness: for those in error, according to their errors.”

 

Mârga (Sk.). “The “Path”, The Ashthânga mârga, the “holy” or sacred path is the one that leads to Nirvâna. The eight-fold path has grown out of the seven-fold path, by the addition of the (now) first of the eight Marga; i.e., “the possession of orthodox views”; with which a real Yogâcharya would have nothing to do.

 

Mârîchi (Sk.). One of the “mind-born” sons of Brahmâ in the Purânas. Brahmans make of him the personified light, the parent of Sűrya, the Sun and the direct ancestor of Mahâkâsyapa. The Northern Buddhists of the Yogachârya School, see in Mârîchi Deva, a Bodhisattva, while Chinese Buddhists (especially the Tauists), have made of this conception the Queen of Heaven, the goddess of light, ruler of the sun and moon. With the pious but illiterate Buddhists, her magic formula “Om Mârîchi svâha” is very powerful. Speaking of Mârîchi, Eitel mentions “Georgi, who explains the name as a ‘Chinese transcription of the name of the holy Virgin Mary’” (!!).  As Mârîchi is the chief of the Maruts and one of the seven primitive Rishis, the supposed derivation does seem a little far fetched.

 

Mârishâ (Sk.). The daughter of the Sage Kanda and Pramlochâ, the Apsara-demon from Indra’s heaven. She was the mother of Daksha. An allegory referring to the Mystery of the Second and Third human Races.

 

Martinists. A Society in France, founded by a great mystic called the Marquis de St. Martin, a disciple of Martinez Pasqualis. It was first established at Lyons as a kind of occult Masonic Society, its members believing in the possibility of communicating with Planetary Spirits and minor Gods and genii of the ultramundane Spheres. Louis Claude de St. Martin, born in 1743, had commenced life as a brilliant officer in the army, but left it to devote himself to study and the belles lettres, ending his career by becoming an ardent Theosophist and a disciple of Jacob Boehmen. He tried to bring back Masonry to its primeval character of Occultism and Theurgy, but failed. He first made his “Rectified Rite” to consist of ten degrees, but these were brought down owing to the study of the original Masonic orders—to seven. Masons complain that he introduced certain ideas and adopted rites “at variance with the archćological history of Masonry”; but so did Cagliostro and St Germain before him, as all those who knew well the origin of Free masonry.

 

Mârttanda, (Sk.). The Vedic name of the Sun.

 

Mârut Jivas (Sk.). The monads of Adepts who have attained the final liberation, but prefer to re-incarnate on earth for the sake of Humanity. Not to be confused, however, with the Nirmânakâyas, who are far higher.

 

Mâruts (Sk.). With the Orientalists Storm-Gods, but in the Veda something very mystical. In the esoteric teachings as they incarnate in every round, they are simply identical with some of the Agnishwatta Pitris, the Human intelligent Egos. Hence the allegory of Siva transforming the lumps of flesh into boys, and calling them Maruts, to show senseless men transformed by becoming the Vehicles of the Pitris or Fire Maruts, and thus rational beings.

 

Masben ... (Chald.). A Masonic term meaning “the Sun in putrefaction”. Has a direct reference—perhaps forgotten by the Masons—to their “Word at Low Breath”.

 

Mash-Mak. By tradition an Atlantean word of the fourth Race, to denote a mysterious Cosmic fire, or rather Force, which was said to be able to pulverize in a second whole cities and disintegrate the world.

 

Masorah (Heb.). The name is especially applied to a collection of notes, explanatory, grammatical and critical, which are found on the margin of ancient Hebrew MSS., or scrolls of the Old Testament. The Masoretes were also called Melchites.

 

Masoretic Points, or Vowels (Heb.). Or, as the system is now called, Masóra from Massoreh or Massoreth, “tradition”, and Mâsar, to “hand down”. The Rabbins who busied themselves with the Masorah, hence called Masorites, were also the inventors of the Masoretic points, which are supposed to give the vowelless words of the Scriptures their true pronunciation, by the addition of points representing vowels to the consonants. This was the invention of the learned and cunning Rabbins of the School of Tiberias (in the ninth century of our era), who, by doing so, have put an entirely new construction on the chief words and names in the Books of Moses, and made thereby confusion still more confounded. The truth is, that this scheme has only added additional blinds to those already existing in the Pentateuch and other works.

 

Mastaba (Eg.). The upper portion of an Egyptian tomb, which, say the Egyptologists, consisted always of three parts: namely (1) the Mastaba or memorial chapel above ground, (2) a Pit from twenty to ninety feet in depth, which led by a passage, to (3) the Burial Chamber, where stood the Sarcophagus, containing the mummy sleeping its sleep of long ages. Once the latter interred, the pit was filled up and the entrance to it concealed. Thus say the Orientalists, who divide the last resting place of the mummy on almost the same principles as theologians do man—into body, soul, and spirit or mind. The fact is, that these tombs of the ancients were symbolical like the rest of their sacred edifices, and that this symbology points directly to the septenary division of man. But in death the order is reversed; and while the Mastaba with its scenes of daily life painted on the walls, its table of offerings, to the Larva, the ghost, or “Linga Sarira”, was a memorial raised to the two Principles and Life which had quitted that which was a lower trio on earth; the Pit, the Passage, the Burial Chambers and the mummy in the Sarcophagus, were the objective symbols raised to the two perishable “principles”, the personal mind and Kama, and the three imperishable, the higher Triad, now merged into one. This “One” was the Spirit of the Blessed now resting in the Happy Circle of Aanroo.

 

Matari Svan (Sk.). An ćrial being shown in Rig-Veda bringing down agni or fire to the Bhrigus; who are called “The Consumers”, and are described by the Orientalists as “a class of mythical beings who belonged to the middle or ćrial class of gods”. In Occultism the Bhrigus are simply the “Salamanders” of the Rosicrucians and Kabalists.

 

Materializations. In Spiritualism the word signifies the objective appearance of the so-called “Spirits” of the dead, who reclothe themselves occasionally in matter; i.e., they form for themselves out of the materials at hand, which are found in the atmosphere and the emanations of those present, a temporary body hearing the human likeness of the defunct as he appeared, when alive. Theosophists accept the phenomenon of “materialization”; but they reject the theory that it is produced by “ Spirits”, i.e., the immortal principles of the disembodied persons. Theosophists hold that when the phenomenon is genuine—and it is a fact of rarer occurrence than is generally believed—it is produced by the larvć, the eidola or Kamalokic “ghosts” of dead personalities. (See  “Kâmadhâtu”, “Kâmaloka” and “Kâmarupa”.) As Kâmaloka is on the earth plane and differs from its degree of materiality only in the degree of its plane of consciousness, for which reason it is concealed from our normal sight, the occasional apparition of such shells is as natural as that of electric balls and other atmospheric phenomena. Electricity as a fluid, or atomic matter (for Theosophists hold with Maxwell that it is atomic), though invisible, is ever present in the air, and manifests under various shapes, but only when certain conditions are there to “materialize” the fluid, when it passes from its own on to our plane and makes itself objective. Similarly with the eidola of the dead. They are present, around us, but being on another plane do not see us any more than we see them. But whenever the strong desires of living men and the conditions furnished by the abnormal constitutions of mediums are combined together, these eidola are drawn—nay, pulled down from their plane on to ours and made objective. This is Necromancy ; it does no good to the dead, and great harm to the living, in addition to the fact that it interferes with a law of nature. The occasional materialization of the “astral bodies” or doubles of living persons is quite another matter. These “astrals” are often mistaken for the apparitions of the dead, since, chameleon-like, our own “Elementaries”, along with those of the disembodied and cosmic Elementals, will often assume the appearance of those images which are strongest in our thoughts. In short, at the so-called “materialization” seances it is those present and the medium, who create the peculiar likeness of the apparitions. Independent “apparitions” belong to another kind of psychic phenomena. Materializations are also called “form-manifestations” and “portrait statues”. To call them materialized spirits is inadmissible, for they are not spirits but animated portrait-statues, indeed.

 

Mathadhipatis (Sk.). Heads of various religious Brotherhoods in India, High Priests in Monasteries.

 

Matrâ (Sk.). The shortest period of time as applied to the duration of sounds, equal to the twinkling of the eye.

 

Mâtrâ (Sk.). The quantity of a Sanskrit Syllable.

 

Mâtripadma (Sk.). The mother-lotus; the womb of Nature.

 

Mâtris (Sk.). “Mothers,” the divine mothers. Their number is seven. They are the female aspects and powers of the gods.

 

Matronethah (Heb. Kab.). Identical with Malcuth, the tenth Sephira. Lit., Matrona is the “inferior mother”.

 

Matsya (Sk.). “A fish.” Matsya avatar was one of the earliest incarnations of Vishnu.

 

Matsya Purâna (Sk.). The Scripture or Purâna which treats of that incarnation.

 

Mâyâ (Sk.). Illusion ; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality ; all that which is subject to change through decay and differentiation and which has therefore a begining and an end is regarded as mâyâ—illusion.

 

Mâyâ Moha (Sk.). An illusive form assumed by Vishnu in order to deceive ascetic Daityas who were becoming too holy through austerities and hence too dangerous in power, as says the Vishnu Purâna.

 

Mâyâvi Rűpa (Sk.). “Illusive form”; the “double” in esoteric philosophy; döppelganger or perisprit in German and French.

 

Mayavic Upadhi (Sk.). The covering of illusion, phenomenal appearance.

 

Mazdeans. From (Ahura) Mazda. (See Spiegel’s Yasna, xl.) They were the ancient Persian nobles who worshipped Ormazd, and, rejecting images, inspired the Jews with the same horror for every concrete representation of the Deity. They seem in Herodotus’ time to have been superseded by the Magian religionists. The Parsis and Gebers, (geberim, mighty men, of Genesis vi. and x. 8) appear to be Magian religionists.

 

Mazdiasnian. Zoroastrian; lit., “worshipping god”.

 

M’bul (Heb.). The “waters of the flood”. Esoterically, the periodical outpourings of astral impurities on to the earth; periods of psychic crimes and iniquities, or of regular moral cataclysms.

 

Medinî(Sk.). The earth; so-called from the marrow (medas) of two demons. These monsters springing from the ear of the sleeping Vishnu, were preparing to kill Brahmâ who was lying on the lotus which grows from Vishnu’s navel, when the god of Preservation awoke and killed them. Their bodies being thrown into the sea produced such a quantity of fat and marrow that Nârâyana used it to form the earth with.

 

Megacosm (Gr.). The world of the Astral light, or as explained by a puzzled Mason “a great world, not identical with Macrocosm, the Universe, but something between it and Microcosm, the little world” or man.

 

Mehen (Eg.). In popular myths, the great serpent which represents the lower atmosphere. In Occultism, the world of the Astral light, called symbolically the Cosmic Dragon and the Serpent. (See the works of Eliphaz Lévi, who called this light le Serpent du Mal, and by other names, attributing to it all the evil influences on the earth.)

 

Melekh (Heb.). Lit., “a King”. A title of the Sephira Tiphereth, the V, or vau in the tetragrammaton—the son or Microprosopus (the Lesser Face).

 

Melhas (Sk.). A class of fire-gods or Salamanders.

 

Memrab (Heb.). In the Kabala, “the voice of the will” i.e., the collective forces of nature in activity, called the “Word”, or Logos, by the Jewish Kabalists.

 

Mendćans (Gr.). Also called Sabians, and St. John Christians. The latter is absurd, since, according to all accounts, and even their own, they have nothing at all to do with Christianity, which they abominate. The modern sect of the Mendćans is widely scattered over Asia Minor and elsewhere, and is rightly believed by several Orientalists to be a direct surviving relic of the Gnostics. For as explained in the Dictionnaire des Apocryphes by the Abbé Migrie (art. “Le Code Nazaréan” vulgaire-ment appele “Livre d’Adam”), the Mendćans (written in French Mandaїtes, which name they pronounce as Mandai) “properly signifies science, knowledge or Gnosis. Thus it is the equivalent of Gnostics” (loc. cit. note p. 3). As the above cited work shows, although many travellers have spoken of a sect whose followers are variously named Sabians, St. John’s Christians and Mendćans, and who are scattered around Schat-Etarab at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates (principally at Bassorah, Hoveїza, Korna, etc.), it was Norberg who was the first to point out a tribe belonging to the same sect established in Syria. And they are the most interesting of all. This tribe, some 14,000 or 15,000 in number, lives at a day’s march east of Mount Lebanon, principally at Elmerkah, (Lata-Kieh). They call themselves indifferently Nazarenes and Galileans, as they originally come to Syria from Galilee. They claim that their religion is the same as that of St. John the Baptist, and that it has not changed one bit since his day. On festival days they clothe them selves in camel’s skins, sleep on camel’s skins, and eat locusts and honey as did their “Father, St. John the Baptist”. Yet they call Jesus Christ an impostor, a false Messiah, and Nebso (or the planet Mercury in its evil side), and show him as a production of the Spirit of the “seven badly- disposed stellars” (or planets). See Codex Nazarćus, which is their Scripture.

 

Mendes (Gr.). The name of the demon-goat, alleged by the Church of Rome to have been worshipped by the Templars and other Masons. But this goat was a myth created by the evil fancy of the odium theologicum. There never was such a creature, nor was its worship known among Templars or their predecessors, the Gnostics. The god of Mendes, or the Greek Mendesius, a name given to Lower Egypt in pre-Christian days, was the ram-headed god Ammon, the living and holy spirit of Ra, the life-giving sun; and this led certain Greek authors into the error of affirming that the Egyptians called the “goat” (or the ram-headed god) himself, Mendes. Ammon was for ages the chief deity of Egypt, the supreme god; Amoun-Ra the “hidden god”, or Amen (the concealed) the Self-engendered who is “his own father and his own son”. Esoterically, he was Pan, the god of nature or nature personified, and probably the cloven foot of Pan the goat-footed, helped to produce the error of this god being a goat. As Ammon’s shrine was at Pa-bi-neb-tat, “the dwelling of Tat or Spirit, Lord of Tat” (Bindedi in the Assyrian inscriptions), the Greeks first corrupted the name into Bendes and then into Mendes from “Mendesius”. The “error” served ecclesiastical purposes too well to be made away with, even when recognized.

 

Mensambulism (Lat.). A word coined by some French Kabalists to denote the phenomenon of “table turning” from the Latin mensa, a table.

 

Meracha phath (Heb.). Used of the “breathing” of the divine Spirit when in the act of hovering over the waters of space before creation (See Siphra Dzeniutha).

 

Mercavah or Mercabah (Heb.). A chariot: the Kabalists say that the Supreme after he had established the Ten Sephiroth used them as a chariot or throne of glory on which to descend upon the souls of men.

 

Merodach (Chald.). God of Babylon, the Bel of later times. He is the son of Davkina, goddess of the lower regions, or the earth, and of Hea, God of the Seas and Hades with the Orientalists; but esoterically and with the Akkadians, the Great God of Wisdom, “he who resurrects the dead”. Hea, Ea, Dagon or Oannes and Merodach are one.

 

Meru (Sk.). The name of an alleged mountain in the centre (or “navel”) of the earth where Swarga, the Olympus of the indians, is placed. It contains the “cities” of the greatest gods and the abodes of various Devas. Geographically accepted, it is an unknown mountain north of the Himalayas. In tradition, Meru was the “ Land of Bliss” of the earliest Vedic times. It is also referred to as Hemâdri “the golden mountain”, Ratnasânu, “jewel peak”, Karnikâchala, “lotus- mountain”, and Amarâdri and Deva-parvata, “the mountain of the gods” The Occult teachings place it in the very centre of the North Pole, pointing it out as the site of the first continent on our earth, after the solidification of the globe.

 

Meshia and Meshiane (Zend). The Adam and Eve of the Zoroastrians, in the early Persian system; the first human couple.

 

Mesmer, Friedrich Anton. The famous physician who rediscovered and applied practically that magnetic fluid in man which was called animal magnetism and since then Mesmerism. He was born in Schwaben, in 1734 and died in 1815. He was an initiated member of the Brotherhoods of the Fratres Lucis and of Lukshoor (or Luxor), or the Egyptian Branch of’ the latter. It was the Council of “Luxor” which selected him—according to the orders of the “Great Brotherhood”—to act in the XVIIIth century as their usual pioneer, sent in the last quarter of every century to enlighten a small portion of the Western nations in occult lore. It was St. Germain who supervised the development of events in this case; and later Cagliostro was commissioned to help, but having made a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled. Of these three men who were at first regarded as quacks, Mesmer is already vindicated. The justification of the two others will follow in the next century. Mesmer founded the “Order of Universal Harmony” in 1783, in which presumably only animal magnetism was taught, but which in reality expounded the tenets of Hippocrates, the methods of the ancient Asclepieia, the Temples of Healing, and many other occult sciences.

 

Metatron (Heb.). The Kabbalistic “Prince of Faces”, the Intelligence of the First Sephira, and the reputed ruler of Moses. His numeration is 314, the same as the deity title “Shaddai”, Almighty. He is also the Angel of the world of Briah, and he who conducted the Isrćlites through the Wilderness, hence, the same as “the Lord God” Jehovah. The name resembles the Greek words metathronon or “beside the Throne”.

 

Metempsychosis. The progress of the soul from one stage of existence to another. Symbolized as and vulgarly believed to be rebirths in animal bodies. A term generally misunderstood by every class of European and American society, including many scientists. Metempsychosis should apply to animals alone. The kabalistic axiom, “A stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, an animal a man, a man a spirit, and a spirit a god”, receives an explanation in Manu’s Mânava-Dharma-Shâstra and other Brahmanical books.

 

Metis (Gr.). Wisdom. The Greek theology associated Metis— Divine Wisdom, with Eros—Divine Love. The word is also said to form part of the Templars’ deity or idol Baphomet, which some authorities derive from Baphe, baptism, and Metis, wisdom; while others say that the idol represented the two teachers whom the Templars equally denied, viz., Papa or the Pope, and Mahomet.

 

Midgard (Scand.). The great snake in the Eddas which gnaws the roots of the Yggdrasil—the Tree of Life and the Universe in the legend of the Norsemen. Midgard is the Mundane Snake of Evil.

 

Midrashim (Heb.). “Ancient”—the same as Purâna ; the ancient writings of the Jews as the Purânas are called the “Ancient” (Scriptures) of India.

 

Migmar (Tib.). The planet Mars.

 

Mîmânsâ (Sk.). A school of philosophy; one of the six in India. There are two Mîmânsâ the older and the younger. The first, the “Pârva-Mîmânsâ”, was founded by Jamini, and the later or “Uttara Mîmânsâ”, by a Vyasa—and is now called the Vedânta school. Sankarâchârya was the most prominent apostle of the latter. The Vedânta school is the oldest of all the six Darshana (lit., “demonstrations”), but even to the Pűrva-Mîmânsâ no higher antiquity is allowed than 500 B.C. Orientalists in favour of the absurd idea that all these schools are “due to Greek influence”, in order to have them fit their theory would make them of still later date. The Shad-darshana (or Six Demonstrations) have all a starting point in common, and maintain that ex nihilo nihil fit.

 

Mimir (Scand.). A wise giant in the Eddas. One of the Jotuns or Titans. He had a well which he watched over (Mimir’s well), which contained the waters of Primeval Wisdom, by drinking of which Odin acquired the knowledge of all past, present, and future events.

 

Minas (Sk.). The same as Meenam, the Zodiacal sign Pisces or Fishes.

 

Minos (Gr.,). The great Judge in Hades. An ancient King of Crete.

 

Miölner (Scand.) The storm-hammer of Thor (See “Svastica”) made for him by the Dwarfs; with it the God conquered men and gods alike. The same kind of magic weapon as the Hindu Agneyastra, the fire- weapon.

 

Mirror. The Luminous Mirror, Aspaqularia nera, a Kabbalistic term, means the power of foresight and farsight, prophecy such as Moses had. Ordinary mortals have only the Aspaqularia della nera or Non Luminous Mirror, they see only in a glass darkly: a parallel symbolism is that of the conception of the Tree of Life, and that only of the Tree of Knowledge. [w.w.w.]

 

Mishnah (Heb.). The older portion of the Jewish Talmud, or oral law,, consisting of supplementary regulations for the guidance of the Jews with an ample commentary. The contents are arranged in six sections, treating of Seeds, Feasts, Women, Damages, Sacred Things and Purification. Rabbi Judah Haunasee codified the Mishnah about AM. 140.

 

Mistletoe. This curious plant, which grows only as a parasite upon other trees, such as the apple and the oak, was a mystic plant in several ancient religions, notably that of the Celtic Druids: their priests cut the Mistletoe with much ceremony at certain seasons, and then only with a specially consecrated golden knife. Hislop suggests as a religious explanation that the Mistletoe being a Branch growing out of a Mother tree was worshipped as a Divine Branch out of an Earthly Tree, the union of deity and humanity. The name in German means “all heal”. Compare the Golden Branch in Virgil’s Ćneid, Vi. 126: and Pliny, Hist. Nat., xvii. 4 “Sacerdos candida veste cultus arborem scandit,
falce aurea demetit.”

 

Mitra or Mithra. (Pers.) An ancient Iranian deity, a sun-god, as evidenced by his being lion-headed. The name exists also in India and means a form of the sun. The Persian Mithra, he who drove out of heaven Ahriman, is a kind of Messiah who is expected to return as the judge of men, and is a sin-bearing god who atones for the iniquities of mankind. As such, however, he is directly connected with the highest Occultism, the tenets of which were expounded during the Mithraic Mysteries which thus bore his name.

 

Mitre. The head-dress of a religious dignitary, as of a Roman Catholic Bishop: a capending upwards in two lips, like a fish’s head with open mouth—os tincć associated with Dagon, the Babylonian deity, the word dag meaning fish. Curiously enough the os uteri has been so called in the human female and the fish is related to the goddess Aphrodite who sprang from the sea. It is curious also that the ancient Chaldee legends speak of a religious teacher coming to them springing out of the sea, named Oannes and Annedotus, half fish, half man.

 

Mizraim (Eg.). The name of Egypt in very ancient times, This name is now connected with Freemasonry. See the rite of Mizraim and the rite of Memphis in Masonic Cyclopćdias.

 

Mlechchhas (Sk.). Outcasts. The name given to all foreigners, and those who are non-Aryas.

 

Mnevis (Eg.). The bull Mnevis, the Son of Ptah, and the symbol of the Sun-god Ra, as Apis was supposed to be Osiris in the sacred bull-form. His abode was at Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. He was black and carried on his horns the sacred urćus and disk.

 

Mobeds (Zend). Parsi, or Zoroastrian priests.

 

Moira (Gr.). The same as the Latin Fatum—fate, destiny, the power which rules over the actions, sufferings, the life and struggles of men. But this is not Karma; it is only one of its agent-forces.

 

Moksha (Sk.). “Liberation.” The same as Nirvâna; a post mortem state of rest and bliss of the “Soul-Pilgrim”.

 

Monad (Gr.). The Unity, the one ; but in Occultism it often means the unified triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the duad, Atma-Buddhi, that immortal part of man which reincarnates in the lower kingdoms, and gradually progresses through them to Man and then to the final goal— Nirvâna.

 

Monas (Gr.). The same as the term Monad ; “Alone”, a unit. In the Pythagorean system the duad emanates from the higher and solitary Monas, which is thus the “First Cause”.

 

Monogenes (Gr.). Lit., “the only-begotten”; a name of Proserpine and other gods and goddesses.

 

Moon. The earth’s satellite has figured very largely as an emblem in the religions of antiquity; and most commonly has been represented as Female, but this is not universal, for in the myths of the Teutons and Arabs, as well as in the conception of the Rajpoots of India (see Tod, Hist.), and in Tartary the moon was male. Latin authors speak of Luna. and also of Lunus, but with extreme rarity. The Greek name is Selene, the Hebrew Lebanah and also Yarcah. In Egypt the moon was associated with Isis, in Phenicia with Astarte and in Babylon with Ishtar. From certain points of view the ancients regarded the moon also as Androgyne. The astrologers allot an Influence to the moon over the several parts of a man, according to the several Zodiacal signs she traverses; as well as a special influence produced by the house she occupies in a figure.

The division of the Zodiac into the 28 mansions of the moon appears to be older than that into 12 signs: the Copts, Egyptians, Arabs, Persians and Hindoos used the division into 28 parts centuries ago, and the Chinese use it still.

The Hermetists said the moon gave man an astral form, while Theosophy teaches that the Lunar Pitris were the creators of our human bodies and lower principles. (See Secret Doctrine 1. 386.) [w.w.w.]

 

Moriah, Mount. The site of King Solomon’s first temple at Jerusalem according to tradition. It is to that mount that Abraham journeyed to offer Isaac in sacrifice.