Glossary-A

Free E-mail Search the Web Search this Site

Adam Kadmon (Heb): Archetypal man, humanity; the manifested Logos corresponding to the third Logos.  The first Logos is "the light of the world"; the second and third, its gradually deepening shadows.

Adept (Lat. adeptus): One who has reached the stage of initiation and become a master in Esoteric Philosophy.

Aether (Grk): The Divine luminiferous substance which pervades the whole universe; the garment of the Supreme Deity; the third principle of the Kosmic Septenary, matter (earth) being the lowest, and Akasa, the highest.

Agathon (Grk): Plato's supreme deity, lit., "the good;"  Alaya, or Soul of the world.

Agnostic: One who believes nothing which cannot be demonstrated by the senses.

Ahankara (Sans): The conception of  " I, " self-consciousness or self-identity; the " I, " or egotistical and mayavic principle in man, due to our ignorance which separates our " I " from the Universal One-Self; personality, egoism.

Ain-Soph (Heb): The "Boundless" or "Limitless" Deity emanating and extending; Deity is No-Thing; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph.

Alchemy: The chemistry of nature; attempts to transmute the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man.

Alexandrian Philosophers School: This famous school arose in Alexandria, Egypt, which city was for long ages the seat of learning and philosophy; it boasted 700,000 rolls, or volumes.

Altruism: From alter, "other"; a quality opposed to egoism; actions tending to do good to others regardless of self.

Analogeticists: The disciples of Ammonius Saccas, so called because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends, myths and mysteries by a principle of analogy and correspondence, which rule is now found in the Kabalistic system, and pre-eminently so in the school of Esoteric philosophy in the East.

Anima Mundi: The "soul of the world;"  Alaya; the Divine Essence which pervades, permeates, animates and informs all things, from the smallest atom of matter to man and God; Nirvana, the Astral Light.

Anoia (Grk): "Want of understanding folly;"  ignorance, irrationality and absence of knowledge.

Anthropomorphism: From the Greek, "anthropos," (man).  The act of endowing God or the gods with a human form and human attributes or qualities.

Anugita (Sans): One of the Upanishads - Clarendon Press, The Sacred Books of the East."

Apollo Belvidere: Of all the ancient statues of Apollo, the son of Jupiter and Latona, called Phoebus, Heleos, the radiant, and the Sun; Pythian Apollo.

Archangel: Highest, supreme angel.  From the Greek words, arch (first) and angelos (messenger).

Arhat (Sans) Algo, Arahat, Arhan, Rahat: "the worthy one;"  a perfected Arya; one exempt from reincarnation; "Deserving Divine honors;"  one who has entered the last and highest path and is thus emancipated from rebirth.

Arians: The followers of Arius, a presbyter of the church in Alexandria in the fourth century.  One who holds  that Christ is a created and human being, inferior to God the Father, though a grand and noble man, a true adept, versed in all the divine mysteries.

Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying): A medieval text on dying, reprinted in part in the modern book The Craft of Dying.

Aryan: "the holy;"  those who had mastered the Aryasatyani and entered the Aryamarga path to Nirvana or Moksha, the great "fourfold" path.  They were originally known as Rishis.  But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birthright, have made Aryans of all Europeans.  Since, in esotericism the four paths or stages can only be entered through great spiritual development and "growth in holiness," they are called Ayamarga.  The degrees of Arhatship, called respectively Sratappati, Sakridagamin, Anagamin and Arhat, or the four classes of Aryas, correspond to the four paths and truths.

Aspect: The form (rupa) under which any principle in septenary man or nature manifests is called an aspect of that principle.

Astral Body: The ethereal counterpart or double of any physical body; Doppelganger.

Astrology: The science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the positions of the stars.  The science of horoscopy is studied now chiefly under four heads:
1) Mundane, in its application to meteorology, seismology, husbandry. 2) State or Civic, in regard to the future of nations, kings and rulers. 3) Horary, in reference to the solving of doubts arising in the mind upon any subject.
4) Genethliacal,  in connection with the future of individual from birth unto death.

Atman (Sans): The Universal Spirit, the divine monad, "the seventh Principle," so called, in the exoteric "septenary" classification of man; the Supreme Soul.

Aura (Grk & Lat): A subtle invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human, animal and other bodies.  It is a psychic effluvium partaking of both the mind and the body, as there is both an electro-vital and at the same time an electro-mental aura; called in Theosophy, the Akasic or magnetic aura; In R. C. Martyrology, a Saint.

Avatara (Sans): Divine incarnation; the descent of a god or some exalted Being who has progressed beyond the necessity for rebirth, into the body of a simple mortal.  Krishna was an Avatar of Vishnu.  The Dalai-Lama is regarded as an Avatar of Avolokiteswara and the Teschu-Lama as one of Tson-Kha-Pa, or Amitabha.  There are two kinds of avatars: one born from woman and the other, parentless (Anupadaka).