Ba-Be: Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary
Copyright (C) 1999 by Theosophical University Press. All
rights reserved.
EDITORS’ NOTE: This online version of the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary
is a work in progress. The manuscript, originally produced in the 1930s and ’40s,
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For ease of searching, diacritical marks are omitted, with the exception of Hebrew
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Ba (Egyptian) T closely connected with the
heart, and usually depicted as a hawk with a human head. It was regarded in the
nature of a human “double,” and mortal, equivalent to prana in some of its
functions, or to kama-manas.
Ba‘al, Baal. See BEL
Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower
of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a
house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The
physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the
initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and
an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may
have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and
self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower
of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace
completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is
thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building
from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If
such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate
and foredestined confusion, but if the tower and its inner
mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The
concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems
to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.
The later Atlanteans were noted for their magic powers, wickedness, and
defiance of the gods, and this tradition is preserved in many legends, such as
the Biblical Tower of Babel, which derived from still older Chaldean scriptures.
The legendary stories of wicked antediluvian giants warring against heaven are
common in every mythology. The defeat of the giants, in some at least of these
legends, results in the confusion of tongues — the break-up and dispersal of a
great racial division of mankind.
Babylon [from Assyrian “gate of the gods”] An ancient,
celebrated city on the Euphrates said to have been founded by the Assyrian
monarch Ninus or his legendary wife Semiramis. In ancient times one foci through
which Brahmanical esoteric wisdom from India was diffused in Asia Minor, and its
cosmogony forms a link between those teachings and the cosmogony of the Hebraic
Bacchus (Greek) Used by both Greeks and Romans, also called
Dionysos by the Greeks, Liber by the Romans, Zagreus in the Orphic mysteries,
Sabazius in Phrygia and T the same as Iacchus (connected with Iao and
Jehovah). Generally represented as the son of Zeus and Semele, he is spoken of
sometimes as a solar and someti for, like many other
personifications of cosmic powers, he has both a solar and lunar (masculine or
feminine) aspect. As a solar deity he has a serpent for his symbol and is a
man-savior, parallel with Adonis, Osiris, Krishna, Buddha, and Christos. He is
often called the god of wine, natural fertility, etc.
The original, pure Bacchic rites pertained to high initiation, in which the
candidate becomes conscious of his oneness with divinity. Thus Bacchus, with his
symbolic serpent and wine, stands for divine inspiration. But when the keys of
the sacred science were lost and symbols were interpreted literally, the rites
degenerated and often became profligate. Bacchus-Dionysos also figures as the
inspirer of dramatic and representative art, inspiring the individual with the
divine afflatus or mystic frenzy. Originally this meant the inner communion of
the candidate with his own inner god and the co on a lower
plane it signifies the fleeting inspiration of poet and artist, and finally it
degenerated into hysteria and morbid psychic states.
Baconian Methods The Baconian method corresponds roughly to
what is known in logic as the inductive method of reasoning, of which Francis
Bacon () was a great advocate, as contrasted with the deductive method.
Considered to be the method of modern science, it consists in inferring general
laws from the observation of
whereas in the deductive
method, general laws are assumed because of the natural harmony of the universe,
and particular instances or consequences are deduced as flowing forth from them.
In the Baconian method particular phenomena are examined with the view of
finding out what is essential and excluding what is nonessential, and thus
establ but the weakness of this method is that the number
of particular phenomena or details to be examined in order to arrive at truth
must be virtually coext for in any instance a body of
particular phenomena may be encountered which demands immediate readjustment or
radical shiftings in opinions in process of crystallization. Actually the
scientific method is a combination of both methods: we cannot interpret
phenomena without having at the outset so moreover, no
sooner have we established a general law than we begin to apply it for the
discovery of other phenomena, thus using the deductive method.
A more important objection to the inductive method as used by modern science
is that it limits the basis of reasoning to the relative paucity of data
furnished by our physical senses, which data we must first learn to understand
otherwise our reasoning is vicious. Blavatsky states that the
secrets of invisible nature cannot be thus inferred, but that we must call in
the aid of higher senses in order to obtain the necessary foundation for
reasoning and to insure the adequate understanding of discoverable data. See
INDUCTIVE METHOD
Bacteria A numerous and varied class of microorganisms which
exist in the air, earth, water, and in and on the bodies of plants, animals, and
men. Bacteria, like all manifested things, are dual in action, being both
beneficial and injurious to others: some of them provide the necessary enzymes
for functional use, and others produce dangerous toxins. They are vital factors
throughout the plant and animal kingdoms between which they
and they are also a medium of contact between the astral and physical planes. As
such they serve as material agents for certain phases of the operations of the
laws of nature on the terrestrial plane.
Bacteria, then, are a host of visible and invisible agents which, on our
plane, subconsciously carry out many processes of evolutionary life and death.
They are links in the karmic chain by which the divine recorders, who follow the
immutable laws in the universal mind, return to each being the results of
whatever it was the antecedent cause. Thus the bacteria of a disease will
multiply and produce their injurious toxins only when the karmic conditions
within or surrounding the individual provide a suitable culture-medium for them.
Even then, the toxemia may or may not be modified or overcome by the natural
antitoxins of the blood aided by competent medical treatment. The typical
disease germs found inactive in healthy throats, etc., are instances of a karma
which, paradoxically, provides a dangerous contact with individual protection.
The healthy person may be an unconscious carrier of the disease germ to someone
who is due to reap the full effects of causes he had set in motion at some time.
The selective functions of these creative and destructive microorganisms are
impersonally, and as it were automatically, directed by the invisible hierarchy
of intelligences which guide the nature forces and so affect us physically and
metaphysically as we have merited. The whole process is as natural as the
analogous way in which a person’s trillions of body cells are dominated by, and
react to, the stimulation or depression of his harmonious or discordant state of
mind and emotions. Both cells and bacteria are living entities, sentient but not
intelligent in the human sense. The typical appearance of bacteria in certain
diseases gives them a place as diagnostic signatures of physical conditions. But
to regard them as the primal cause of the disease is mistaking the phenomena for
the noumena which is working out karmic effects.
Badarayana Vyasa. See VYASA
Baddha (Sanskrit) Baddha [from the verbal root
bandh to bind, tie] Bound, tied, in Hinduism “bound by the
fetters of existence, or evil” (Kapila). ” ‘Baddha’ differs from ‘Mukta’ in
being encased as it were within these 36 Tatwams, while the other is free”
(Subba Row, Theosophist 3:43). As a noun, used by Jains and Buddhists for that
which binds or fetters the ray of the imbodied spirit.
Badha (Sanskrit) Bādha [from the verbal root
bādh to harass, pain, trouble] Affliction, trouble, pain, hurt.
Baetyl. See BETYLOS
Bagavadam (Tamil) According to Blavatsky, a scripture on
astronomy and kindred subjects (TG 48). The time periods in it differ from
present-day reckonings: 15 solar two paccham (30 days) make
a month — equivalent to only one day of the pitris. Two of such months make a
three roodoo, two ayanam, a year. However, this year of
mortals is but a day of the gods.
Bagh-bog (Slavonian) One of the principal ancient Slavonian
divinities of pre-Christian times, associated with thunder or cosmic
somewhat resembling the Roman Jupiter Tonans or Greek Zeus.
Bahak-Zivo bahak-ziwa (Gnostic) According to the
Codex Nazaraeus, the genius who called the world into existence out of
the dark water. He is also called the father of the genii or aeons. Bahak-Zivo
was ordered to construct creatures, but failed to do so because he was ignorant
of Orcus (the bottomless pit); so he called to his aid a still purer spirit,
Fetahil, who likewise failed in the attempt (cf SD 2:17).
Bahishprajna (Sanskrit) Bahi?praj?a [from
bahi? out, outside + praj?ā intuitive consciousness] Also
Bahir-praj?ā. One whose knowledge is directed towa the
present state of human consciousness.
Bai. See BA
Baital Pachisi (Hindi) In popular lore, a vampire
believed to hover around graves and to subsist on the putrefying remains of
Bal. See BEL
Bala (Sanskrit) Bala Power, strength, might, vigor
(cf Latin valor); one of the six functions of action, similar to the
ten karmendriya (karmic energies) of Buddhism. In yoga practice the five powers
(panchabalani) to be acquired are: complete trust or faith, energy, memory,
meditation, and wisdom.
Balaam (Hebrew) Bil‘ām One of the prophets of the
Old Testament, last and greatest of the gentile prophets, appearing at the time
when the Israelites were completing their forty years of wandering (Numbers
22-4). “The Zohar explains the ‘birds’ which inspired Balaam to mean
‘Serpents,’ to wit, the wise men and adepts at whose school he had learned the
mysteries of prophecy” (SD 2:409).
Baladeva. See BALARAMA
Balahala The fifth degree in the inferior Egyptian
M instruction in alchemy under the tuition of Horus was the principal
feature of this degree, the word being chemia (Khemi was the old name
of Egypt).
Balarama (Sanskrit) Balarāma Elder brother of
Krishna, regarded by some as an avatara of Vishnu, by others as the incarnation
of the great serpent Sesha. He spent his childhood with Krishna and during his
life performed many daring exploits. Krishna, the indigo-complexioned, was
considered to be a relatively full avataric manifestation of Vishnu, while
Balarama, said to have been of fairer complexion, is known as a partial avataric
incarnation of Vishnu.
Balder, Baldr (Icelandic) The best, the sun god in
Norse mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga and a favorite with gods and men.
His mansion is Breidablick (broadview) whence he can keep watch over all the
worlds. One of the lays of the Elder or Poetic Edda deals entirely with the
death of the sun god, also mentioned in the principal poem Voluspa. Briefly
stated: the gods were concerned when Balder was troubled with dreams of
impending doom. Frigga therefore set out to exact a promise from all living
things that none would harm Balder, and all readily complied. One thing only had
been overlooked: the harmless-seeming mistletoe. Loki, the mischievous god
(human mind), became aware of this, plucked the little plant, and from it
fashioned a dart. He approached Hoder, the blind god (of darkness and ignorance)
who was standing disconsolately by while the other gods were playfully hurling
their weapons against the invulnerable sun god. Offering to guide his aim, Loki
placed on Hoder’s bow the small but deadly “sorrow-dart.” Thus mind darkened by
ignorance accomplished what nothing else could: the death of the bright deity of
light. Balder must then travel to the house of Hel, queen of the realm of the
dead. Odin, as Hermod, goes to plead with Hel for Balder’s return, and Hel
agrees to release him on condition that all living things weep for him. Frigga
resumes her weary round and implores all beings to mourn the sun god’s passing.
All agree save one: Loki in the guise of an aged crone refuses to shed a tear.
This single taint of perverseness in the human mind condemns Balder to remain in
the realm of Hel until the following cycle is due to begin. Thus death is linked
with the active human mind, Loki. As the bright sun god is placed on his
pyre-ship, his loving wife Nanna (the moon goddess) dies of a broken heart and
is placed beside him, but before the ship is set ablaze and cast adrift, Odin
leaned over to whisper something in the dead sun god’s ear. This secret message
must endure unknown to all until Balder’s return, when he and his dark twin
Hoder will “build together on Ropt’s (Odin’s) sacred soil.”
The allegory is subject to many interpretations. The sun god dies with every
nightfall, to rise again t with every winter solstice, to
return and bring a new ye and with every planetary cycle,
as well as each solar lifetime. The tale also symbolizes the passing of the
golden age of innocence which had to be superseded by more conscious and
purposive evolution of the human race: Loki, who represents the fire of mind —
human, imperfect, clever, but unevolved, which in time must become perfected
spiritual intelligence.
Bali (Sanskrit) Bali Daitya king who through
devotion and penance became ruler of the three worlds (heaven, the upper air,
and patala). Vishnu as the dwarf avatara regains these for the gods by means of
his three superhuman steps or strides. (BCW 13:158, 4:367). See also
VAMANA-AVATARA
Bal-ilu (Chaldean) An ancient name for the sun,
allegorically the largest of eight houses, built by the Mother for her eight
divine sons, representing the sun and the seven planets. “Bal-ilu (Marrtanda)
was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He began (to work) as the
huge elephants do. He breathed (drew in) into his stomach the vital airs of his
brothers. He sought to devour them. . . . [Mother] exiled Bal-ilu to the centre
of her kingdom, from whence he could not move. (Since then) he (only) watches
and threatens” (SD 1:100).
Balsamo, Giusseppe. See CAGLIOSTRO, COUNT
ALESSANDRO DI
Balthazar, Belshazzar Lord of riches, lord
one of the three Magi, described as journeying to Judea to pay
homage to the infant Jesus. The ancient Babylonian deity Bel or Ba‘al was
associated with the moon — the lor thus one interpretation
of the legend indicates the three particular planets which were predominant at
the birth of the Christ: Balthazar standing for the Moon, Kaspar for Mercury,
and Melchior for Venus.
Bamian, Statues of Five colossal statues representing the
height of the early human races, cut in rock by initiates of the late fourth and
the fifth root-races to preserve for posterity a physical record of the height
of the early races, located near Bamian (Bamiyan or Bamian), a small town in
Afghanistan. The largest statue, 173 feet high, represents the first ethereal
root-race of mankind. The next statue, 120 feet tall, represents the sweat-born
or second root-race. The third statue, 60 feet high, immortalizes the third
root-race. The fourth, representing the fourth root-race or Atlanteans, is 27
feet high. The fifth statue is only a little larger than the average tall man of
today, and represents our present fifth root-race (cf SD 2:337-40).
Bandha (Sanskrit) Bandha [from the verbal root
bandh to enchain, bind, fetter] A bond, fetter, in
philosophy applied to life on earth, mundane bondage or attachment to this
world, as opposed to mukti or moksha (final emancipation).
Bandhakarana (Sanskrit) Bandhakara?a [from
bandha bondage + kara?a from the verbal root k? to make,
do] Makin binding, fettering, or a holding back. Subba Row
(Notes on BG 71) assumes that mulaprakriti is the real or principal bandhakarana
as the originating cause of karmic activity, but this has reference only to the
most abstract and spiritual side of things, as in the last analysis even karma
itself may be traced backwards and inwards to mulaprakriti as the field of all
possible activity.
Banyan (Banian) The Indian fig tree (Ficus bengalensis
of the Urticaceae), a shade tree remarkable for the enormous area that a single
tree often covers, since roots are developed from the branches, which descend to
the ground and take root. Inasmuch as each descending root in time becomes a
tree trunk with branches of its own, which in their turn send roots to the
ground, the gradual spread of the tree is theoretically indefinite and can reach
more than a hundred yards in diameter. It was named tree of the merchants, as it
was customary in olden times to hold markets under the shelter of these trees,
called bar in Hindi, vata (covering) in Sanskrit.
In theosophy, used to express the peak of human evolutionary attainment on
the earth-chain, the ever-living-human-Banyan or Wondrous Being (SD 1:207).
Members of the hierarchy of Compassion under the Wondrous Being are referred to
as tendrils descending from the heights to the lower planes of earth, these
themselves aspiring to become like their spiritual superior.
Baphomet [from Greek baphe immersion + metis
wisdom] A medieval mystic term usually identified with the goat of Mendes. The
Templars of Malta were accused of worshiping Baphomet as an idol. Baphomat
signifies a baptism in wisdom or initiation, but became degraded and
misunderstood when the keys to its real meaning were lost. Pan, the Greek nature
god, was often represented with the horns however, “Pan is
related to the Mendesian goat, only so far as the latter represents, as a
talisman of great occult potency, nature’s creative force” (TG 246).
Ba-po. See BON
Baptism [from Greek baptizein to sprinkle]
Ceremonial of pur one of the sacraments in the Christian
churches, by which persons are initiated into the visible Church of Christ. It
consists in either immersion in water or sprinkling with water, according to the
practice of different churches. In the Protestant Churches it is “the outward
and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” accepted as a necessary
preliminary to the other sacraments, and even as essential to salvation. In the
Roman Catholic Church it carries remission of sin both original and actual. It
existed in pre-Christian times among Jews and pagans, practiced in Chaldea,
Egypt, India, Greece, Africa, Polynesia, North America, and ancient Europe,
among others.
Mystically speaking, there are two baptisms: that of wa
the former pertaining to the plane of matter, the latter to that of spirit. In
the New Testament, John the Baptist says: “I baptize you with water, but a
greater than I shall come, who will baptize you with fire.” Jesus instructs
Nicodemus as to the two births: the birth of water and the birth of the spirit.
Baptism was therefore a ceremonial pertaining to an inferior degree of
initiation.
Barbelo (Gnostic) Prominent in the Pistis Sophia,
where it is referred to as “an invisible God”; but it is one of three invisible
divinities. Another passage, in which Mary is speaking to Jesus, refers to Mary
as having come from the region of B leading C. W. King to remark that the
deity includes “the Divine Mother of the Savior” (SD 2:570). But comparing other
passages in the manuscript, it is clear that the term is not used in this latter
sense alone.
Bard [from Latin bardus from Gaulish and old
Brythonic probably bardos cf Welsh bardd] Exalted one,
initiate, one of the three holy orders of Druidism — Druids, Bards, and
Ovates. The Bards had the duty of keeping alive among the people the knowledge
or intuition that there is a path that leads to wisdom and initiation. They
carried this out largely by telling stories: a Mabinogi, according to Sir John
Rhys, was a story belonging to the equipment of the Bards. These stories were
told in such a way that their symbolic meaning might be apparent to those with
intuition, but hidden from the mass. In telling the stories they used verse form
a good deal, so that now in every country but Wales bard has come to mean poet.
In Wales, however, it retains some relic of its original meaning: a Bard is a
member of the Gorsedd, and may
no poet is a Bard unless
the Gorsedd has admitted him to its ranks. The Bard’ that of
the D the Ovate’s green.
Barddas (Welsh) A collection of manuscripts illustrating the
teachings of the Druids, awarded the prize at the Llangollen National Eisteddfod
in 1858. The original preface says: “there may be found in this collection some
fragments which contain, as is very clear to every initiated Bard, the remains
of that sublime learning. . . . In order to prove the genuineness and great
antiquity of these particulars, it may suffice that they are also discoverable .
. . in the ancient Bardism of Hindustan.”
Bardesanes Greek form of Bar Deisan or Bardaisan (154-222?),
a Gnostic from Edessa in Mesopotamia in the time of Marcus Aurelius. Little is
known of his life, and his teachings must be gathered from fragments preserved
by commentators. He has something in common with Valentinus but, if he was ever
a disciple of that Gnostic, he soon diverged on his own line. Though his
doctrines frequently conflict with those of the Christian Church, he is
considered by some to have been a Christian. He derived much of his doctrine
from India. At the head of his cosmogony stands the unknown Deity, whose shadow
is the root of matter — from the One and Matter spring the
Son, whose union with Sophia p and duality pervades the
manifested worlds in a system of seven syzygies or pairs of active and passive
principles. He upholds human free will, and makes great use of the astrological
keys connecting mankind with the seven planetary spheres. As to birth,
regeneration, and the inner meaning of baptism, he taught the continuing
existence of the essential self through many changes of vehicle.
Bardesanian System Applied often to the Codex of the
Nazarenes, but with doubtful propriety, since the connection of the Nazarene
system with Bardesanes seems one of similarity rather than personal relation.
Bardo (Tibetan) [from bar between + do
two] B generally a gap, interval, or intermediate state, especially
the state between two births. The term has become known in the West through the
Bar do thos sgrol (bar-do tho-dol), “Liberation through Hearing in
the Bardo,” translated by W. Y. Evans-Wentz as The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
According to the Bardo Thodol, there are six such “intervals”: the
bardo of birth, the bardo of dreams, the bardo of samadhi (meditation), the
bardo of the moment before death, the bardo of dharmata, and the bardo of
becoming. The Bardo Thodol describes the last three of these, and is
recited in the presence of the deceased believed to be experiencing these
states, usually for a total period of 49 days. It is believed that the teaching
contained in the text can enable the deceased to attain liberation while in the
bardo states, or at least to attain the best possible rebirth.
Bardo is used in Tibet to refer to the many events and experiences undergone
by the excarnate human being after death, generally considered to last from
physical death until the next rebirth or reincarnation, though it is somewhat
shorter than this. Since this period “may last from a few years to a kalpa” (ML
105), the bardo has more than the meaning commonly understood by the Tibetan
populace which includes the time passed by the excarnate entity in kama-loka, in
the intermediate or gestation period in which the entity is preparing for its
birth into devachan, and the period of ineffable bliss and peace (illusory as it
may be from the standpoint of reality) passed by the entity in the devachanic
state itself. It also includes the later intermediate period — usually carefully
veiled from common knowledge — existent between the ending of devachan and the
rebirth of the reincarnating ego.
Baresma(n) (Avestan), Barsum (Pahlavi),
Barsam (Persian) [from the verbal root bares to grow
upright] A wand of the Magi, who were instructed in
the Vendidad to go to the tree “that is beautiful, high-growing, and
mighty amongst the high-growing trees,” and after an invocation, to cut off a
twig, “long as a plowshare, thick as a barley-corn. The faithful one, holding it
in his left hand, shall not leave off keeping his eyes upon it, whilst he is
offering up the sacrifice to Ahura-Mazda and to the Amesha-Spentas.” To this day
the Parsis use the baresman, but have replaced the twigs of the scared tree with
brass wires.
Blavatsky hints that baresman is taken from the tree created by Ahura-Mazda,
the tree of occult and spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and so is a symbolic rod
of power and wisdom, such as is often ascribed in ancient mythologies to great
leaders or teachers of peoples and to high adepts. Baresman symbolically
represents a branch of the tree of knowledge, known as Gaokarena in Pahlavi
literature, soul healing Haoma (the extract of this tree), and Zavr (its
libation). “We praise mighty Vayu, with the Haoma mixed with milk and with
Baresman with the tongue of Kherad (Intellect) and the holy word, with words and
deeds, with Zavr and the true spoken words” (Ram Yasht 5).
It is said in Zad-Sparam that the tree of Harwisp Tohmag (all-seed-bearing
tree) was created in the sea of Farakhkard (the unbounded sea) from which all
plants grow, and that the Simorgh (Saena) nests on it. When the Simorgh flies
away, all the dry seeds drop into the water which the rain brings down to earth.
Next to the All-seed-bearing Tree exists the tree of white Haoma (Gaokarena),
the foe of decrepitude, reviver of the dead, and giver of eternal life.
Bargalmer. See BERGELMIR
Barhaspatyamana (Sanskrit) Bārhaspatyamāna [from
b?haspati Jupiter + the verbal root mā to measure] Jupiter’s
a method of reckoning time based on the year of Jupiter, in
which an earth-year is calculated as 361 days and 11 ghadias. One of the three
methods of reckoning time used during the age when Gautama Buddha lived,
especially in Magadha and by Pali writers in general, and still in use in parts
Barhishad (Sanskrit) Barhi?ad [from barhi?
sacred kusa grass, fire + the verbal root sad to sit] Mystically, those
who attend to or who are engrossed in domestic affairs, material or merely
those pitris (fathers, ancestors) who evolved the human
astral-physical form. These lunar ancestors — seven or ten classes — evolved
forth their astral bodies or chhayas (shadows), thus forming the first
astral-physical races of humanity in which the higher classes of pitris, the
agnishvattas, incarnated, thus making out of a relatively intellectually
senseless mankind, true thinking human beings.
“It thus becomes clear why the Agnishwatta, devoid of the grosser
creative fire, hence unable to create physical man, having no
double, or astral body, to project, since they were without any form,
are shown in exoteric allegories as Yogis, Kumaras (chaste youths), who became
‘rebels,’ Asuras, fighting and opposing gods . . . Yet it is they alone
who could complete man, i.e., make of him a self-conscious, almost a
divine being — a god on Earth. The Barhishad, though possessed of
creative fire, were devoid of the higher mahat-mic element. Being on a level
with the lower principles — those which precede gross objective matter — they
could only give birth to the outer man, or rather to the model of the physical,
the astral man” (SD 2:78-9). The barhishads “could only create, or rather
clothe, the human Monads with their own astral Selves, but they could not make
man in their image and likeness. ‘Man must not be like one of us,’ say the
creative gods, entrusted with the fabrication of the lower animal but
. . . Their creating the semblance of men out of their own divine
Essence means, esoterically, that it is they who became the first Race, and thus
shared its destiny and further evolution. They would not, simply
because they could not, give to man that sacred spark which burns and
expands into the flower of human reason and self-consciousness, for they had it
not to give” (SD 2:94-5).
Barley. See WHEAT
Basht. See BAST
Basileus or Archon Basileus (Greek) K
when the archon at Athens was replaced by a board of nine archons, the official
functions were divided, and the second archon held the presidency of religious
observances, including those of the Eleusinian Mysteries. His functions should
not be confounded with those of the chief hierophant, the true presider over the
inner rites.
Basilides A celebrated Alexandrian Gnostic of about 120 AD,
probably born in Syria, whose teachings included a system of emanations and
h founder of the Basilidian Gnostics, declared an heretical
sect. Basilides claimed to have derived his teachings from an original Gospel of
Matthew and from Glaucus, a disciple of Peter.
Basilisk. See DRAGON; SERPENT
Bast (Egyptian) Bubastis (Greek) [from
bes heat, fire] The goddess of the seventh nome of lower Egypt, the
capital of which was Per-Bast (Greek Bubastis). She was identified with the
female counterparts of Ra and Tem — hence called the eye of Ra and of Tem, and
the Shetat (the hidden one) — and at Thebes identified with Mut and I her
son by Shu was Khensu (Khonsu).
Bast is regarded as the personification of the power of the sun which
manifests in the form of heat, a position which she holds together with the
goddess Sekhet. But she is also intimately connected with the moon, especially
in her connection with the cat — Khensu being a lunar god. Thus when she is
depicted as a lioness her
when as a cat, lunar. This dual
aspect bears a close analogy with the moon, which is further indicated when Bast
is represented as being one of the goddesses
and her son
Khensu was declared to make women fruitful and make the human germ grow,
especially in his character of the moon, the lightbearer.
Herodotus gives the Greek Artemis (or in Latin Diana) as an equivalent of
Bath Qol, Bath Kol (Hebrew) Bath Qōl
[from bath daughter + qōl voice] D used
in the Qabbalah to signify the female side of the logos, the daughter of the
primordial light, Shechinah, and is equivalent to the Hindu Vach and the Chinese
Kwan-yin. It likewise signifies the wisdom that was received by initiates —
figurated as a voice — this wisdom being the daughter of cosmic all-wisdom.
“Bath Kol, the filia Vocis, the daughter of the divine voice of the
Hebrews, responding from the mercy seat within the veil of the temple . . .” (SD
Batoo. See BATU
Batte-bazi (Hindi) Ba??e-bāzi The jugglery of a trickster, as
opposed to genuine occult powers.
Batu (Egyptian) Also Batoo, Baiti. First man in the Egyptian
legend of the Two Brothers, the probable original of the Greek story of
Epimetheus and Prometheus. Just as Pandora was sent to Epimetheus, so is a
beautiful girl, the creation of the heavenly artist Khnum, sent to Batu,
whereupon Batu’s happiness is destroyed.
Batylos. See BETYLOS
Baubo The Matron Baubo, the enchantress “before she succeeds
in reconciling the soul — Demeter, to its new position, finds herself obliged to
assume the sexual forms of an infant. Baubo is matter, the physical
and the intellectual, as yet pure astral soul can be ensnared into its new
terrestrial prison but by the display of innocent babyhood. Until then, doomed
to her fate, Demeter, or Magna-mater, the Soul, wonders and hesitates
but once having partaken of the magic potion prepared by Baubo, she
for a certain time she parts with that consciousness of
higher intellect that she was possessed of before entering the body of a child.
Thenceforth she must see and when the age of reason arrives
for the child, the struggle — forgotten for a few years of infancy — begins
again” (IU 2:112).
Bear, Great. See URSA MAJOR AND MINOR
Beasts. See ANIMAL KINGDOM
Bee(s) Greek and Roman writers, having in mind the
terminology of the Mysteries, used the term bees (melissai) to denote both
priestesses and women disciples. Thus it was used for the priestesses of Delphi
and other Mysteries, and by the Neoplatonists for pure and chaste persons. Honey
and nectar are symbols of wisdom.
Vergil says that bees have a portion of the divine mind, from which aethereal
particles stream, and that divinity permeates the whole earth so that all beings
draw from it the streams of life (Georgics 4, 320). The spiritual or
monadic consciousness (the nous) manifests itself in innumerable ways, and this
same consciousness is in man. A little later Vergil says that bees are born from
the carcass of a slain bullock or bull. The bull or cow is a symbol of the moon,
and the moon has always stood as a symbol of the psychic intelligence or lower
thus the meaning is that out of his perfectly subordinated (“slain”)
bull — the lunar body or psychic nature — is born the “bee” of the disciple, the
will and the urge to enter into the solar life or the spirit. In the Finnish
mythology of the Kalevala, a bee is the messenger between this world and higher
realms. In Scandinavian mythology bees again play an important part with the
world tree (Yggdrasil).
Beelzebub, Beelzebul (Hebrew) Ba‘al z?būb [from
ba‘al lord + z?būb fly] L a god of the
Philistines, popularly worshiped as the destroyer of flies, to whom was erected
a temple at Ekron. The mythical zoology of the ancients points directly to an
inner and mystical significance: “flies” is used not in the sense of the insect,
but for a certain class of elementals whose “flying” around and through the
earth is governed directly by lunar influences. Thus Beelzebub is in this
connection a lunar divinity.
Ba‘al-zebul, a form in the Old and New Testaments, is translated as Lord of
the High House or Lord of the Habitation, the reference here being to the moon
as the habitation or receptacle of these elemental souls at a certain time of
their existence.
In Christian demonology, Beelzebub is one of the gubernatores of the infernal
kingdom under Lucifer: thus in Milton’s Paradise Lost he is second to
Satan. In Matthew 12:24, Beelzebub is referred to as the prince of the devils.
Behemoth (Hebrew) B?hēmōth, singular b?hēmāh
bāham to be dumb, mute] A beast, a nons used in Job
40:15-23. Scholars are of the opinion that the reference here is to the
hippopotamus or the Leviathan. “Behemoth is the principle of Darkness,
or Satan, in Roman Catholic Theology, and yet Job says of him that
‘Behemoth is the chief (principle) of the ways of God’ ” (SD 2:486), and an
entity spoken of, however poetically, as the chief of the ways of the divine,
can hardly be a physical quadruped of earth.
Beijve (Sameh) The bright sun god of the nomadic people of
northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola peninsula of Russia who call
themselves Sameh (people of the sun). Beijve is the son of the divine Jubmel,
and the Milky Way is the shining trail left by his skis when he hastened to obey
the god’s summons. With Beijve’s advice and help, Jubmel caused a bridge to be
created between the upper divine worlds “where the light begins” and the lower
“dark and silent worlds”; on the upper end of the span he fashioned the earth
from his little reindeer doe. Her bones became earth’s armature, her flesh its
ground, her blood vessels became its rivers, and her hairs the forests. The
little reindeer’s skull protects the earth from the intense light of the sun,
and her two eyes are the morning and the evening star. But her heart he hid deep
within the earth where the lonely mountaineer may sometimes, in the quiet summer
night, hear it beating.
Being and Nonbeing; Be-ness Equivalent to
the Sanskrit sat, asat, and tat. Asat is “a philosophical term meaning
‘non-being,’ or rather non-be-ness. The ‘incomprehensible nothingness.’
Sat, the immutable, eternal, ever-present, and the one real ‘Be-ness’ (not
Being) is spoken of as being born of Asat, and Asat begotten by ‘Sat.’
The unreal, or Prakriti, objective nature regarded as an illusion. Nature, or
the illusive shadow of its one true essence” (TG 33). So asat or nonbeing is
used both to denote that which precedes Being, and out of which Being is born —
and to denote the illusory world in contrast with the essential
or fundamental cosmic self. Sat (or asat) corresponds very largely with the
Absolute of ordinary European philosophy, whereas Be-ness or nonbeing
corresponds with the extremely metaphysical Vedic and Vedantic tat and
parabrahman.
Beith ’Elohim (Hebrew) Bēith ’Elohīm House of the
’ the title of a Qabbalistic work, classed as one of the
treatises of the Zohar, which contains the doctrines of Rabbi Isaac
Loria (edited by Rabbi Irira) and treats of angels, demons, elemental spirits,
and souls.
Bel (Greek, Latin) [from Semitic ba‘al chief, lord]
Lord, one of the supreme gods of the Chaldeo- or Assyro-Babylonian
pantheon: the second of the triad composed of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Assyriologists
have assumed that Bel was simply the title of a deity, which they have
designated as En-lil (the mighty lord). In the division of the universe into
heaven, earth, and water, Bel was considered as the lord of the land, and his
temple at Nippur was called E-kur (the mountain house), just as Ea’s was the
watery house.
There have been many Bels, which may be one of the reasons that in The
Secret Doctrine Bel is made equivalent to the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and
Mercury. As Bel or Ba‘al means Lord, the title becomes applicable to any of the
important celestial bodies.
According to one account, the creation of the world and especially of mankind
is ascribed to Bel. He is also calle and his consort,
Belit, is called mother of the gods. His eldest son in Sin, god of the Moon. Bel
also brings about the deluge which destroys humanity, showing his dual aspect of
evolver and destroyer.
Bel has been associated with the Phoenician Baal, the supreme god of the
Canaanites, conceived also as the protective power of generation and fertility,
connected with the moon. His female counterpart, Ashtoreth (Astarte, Ishtar) was
considered as the receptive goddess, also a lunar divinity. In later times the
rites connected with these deities became degraded in
sacrifices were made, apparently even human sacrifices, but at one time Ba‘al
was worshiped as a sun god.
His various names in the Old and New Testaments demonstrate the various
aspects in which he was regarded. Thus in Exodus he was named Ba‘al-Tsephon, the
god of the crypt. He was likewise named Seth or Sheth, signifying a pillar
(phallus); and it was owing to these associations that he was considered a hid
god, similar to Ammon of Egypt. Among the Ammonites, a people of East Palestine,
he was known as Moloch (the king); at Tyre he was called Melcarth. The worship
of Ba‘al was introduced into Israel under Ahab, his wife being a Phoenician
“Typhon, called Set, who was a great god in Egypt during the early
dynasties, is an aspect of Baal and Ammon as also of Siva, Jehovah
and other gods. Baal is the all-devouring Sun, in one sense, the fiery
Moloch” (TG 47). As to the leaping of the prophets of Ba‘al, mentioned in
the Bible (1 Kings 18:26), Blavatsky writes: “It was simply a characteristic
of the Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the planets round the
sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on
the occasion” (IU 2:45).
Bel is also the name for the sun with the Gauls.
Bel-Belitanus. See BELIT
Belgamer. See BERGELMIR
Belial (Hebrew) B?liyya‘al [from b?lī
nothing, not + ya‘al worth, profit, use] Worthless, signifying
also a wicked man, a destroyer, a waster. A name given by Hebrew and
Christian demonologists to the aggregate of evil astral forces or influences,
some of them partaking of an individualized type, whose influence is always
pernicious to humans, and association with which is invariably immoral because
suggestive of evil. It is a name personifying these astral entities of evil.
In the New Testament Belial is associated with Satan (2 Cor 6:15), although
“if Belial must be personified to please our religious friends, we would be
obliged to make him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort
of spiritual ‘Diakka’ [Kama-lokic elementary]. The demonographers, however, who
enumerate nine distinct orders of daimonia, make him chief of the third
class — a set of hobgoblins, mischievous and good-for-nothing” (IU 2:482).
Belit, Belita (Bab, Chald, Assyr) C a title
applicable to any important goddess in the pantheon, applied especially to
Nin-lil, consort of Bel (or En-lil) at Nippur, where she was known as mother of
the gods, ruler of heaven and earth. The title was likewise later applied to
Ishtar (Greek Beltis).
Bel-Belit was the combined occult powers of this representation of the
godhead as both male and female, called by the Greeks and the Romans
Bel-Belitanus.
Bells, Astral; Bell Sounds A melodious
silvery sound as of a bell, said to be produced by creating “an inter-etheric
vacuum” (SD 1:557).
Bel-Merodach. See MARDUK
Bel-Moloch. See MOLOCH
Bel Shemesh (Hebrew) L a title also given to
the moon, during the time when the Jews worshiped the moon as a male and when
the sun was considered to be a female divinity. Later the title was applied to
the sun (likewise to Jehovah), and then Ashtoreth became queen of the heaven or
the moon. See also ASTARTE; SHAMASH
Belus. See BEL
Ben (Hebrew) Bēn S used in names to denote “son
of,” as Ben-Hadad (son of Hadad).
Benei ’Elohim (Hebrew) B?nēi ’Elohīm Sons of gods —
less accurately, sons of G the phrase occurs in Genesis 6:2, 4. In the
Qabbalah, however, it often has reference to the mal’achim or mal’achayya
(Chaldean), meaning either angels or messengers.
Benei Shemesh (Hebrew) Bēl Shemesh S
“the term belongs to the period when the Jews were divided into sun and moon
worshippers — Elites and Belites” (TG 53-4). See also BEL SHEMESH
Be-ness. See BEING AND NONBEING; PARABRAHMAN; THAT
Beni-Nabim (Hebrew) B?nēi N?bī’īm [from bēn
son, disciple + nābī’ seer, prophet] S disciples of
prophets. Blavatsky speaks of the Essenes as descendants of the Beni-Nabim (IU
Bennu (Egyptian) Also Benu, Benoo. A bird of the heron
species, identified with the phoenix. It was prominent in Egyptian mythology,
being associated with the sun: it was said to have come into being from the fire
which burned at the top of the sacred Persea T that the renewed morning sun
rose in t and that it was the soul of Ra, the sun god. The
sanctuary of the bennu was likewise that of Ra and of Osiris. A hymn in the
Book of the Dead says: “I go in like the Hawk, and I come forth like the
Bennu, the Morning Star (i.e., the planet Venus) of Ra” (xiii 2).
Blavatsky terms the bennu “the bird of resurrection in Eternity . . . in whom
night follows the day, and day the night — an allusion to the periodical cycles
of cosmic resurrection and human re-incarnation” (SD 1:312).
Ben Shamesh. See BENEI SHEMESH
Berasit, Berasheth. See BERE’SHITH
Bere’shith, (Hebrew) B?rē’shīth The first two words
of the Hebrew Genesis. As Hebrew was originally written from right to left in a
series of consonants, without vowels, several renderings may be made of any
passage, according to the manner of inserting vowels and of dividing the
consonants into words. Thus the original Hebrew& ????? (b r ’ sh th) may be
divided as be-re’shith, as is common in European translations, and rendered “in
the beginning” [b? in + rē’shīth beginning from
rē’sh or rō’sh chief, head, first part, summit]; a second
translation could be “in the first part.” If the meaning “head” be taken, then
as head signifies wisdom, the rendering “in wisdom” follows. But this same
combination of letters could be rendered “by arrangement” or “by establishment,”
by dividing it as bare’-shith [from bārē’ forming + shīth
establishment, arrangement].
Bergelmir, Bargalmer (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from
ber to bear + gelmir shrieker, possibly a screaming eagle (gemlir)
or a noun suffix attached to the Icelandic verb gella
scream or to the Swedish adjective gall shrill] The giant who survives
the de the fruit born of a life cycle (Trudgelmir).
Bergelmir is called a son of Trudgelmir who in turn is born of Orgelmir
(original sound), keynote of the gamut of existence.
The story relates that when Ymir, the frost giant, was killed (transformed)
by the creative trinity of gods, and made into the worlds, all the evil frost
giants were drowned in his blood, save Bergelmir. He is saved on a boat-keel and
ground on the mill to become the substance for a new creation.
Beri’ah (Hebrew) B?rī’āh [from bārā’ to
create, shape] The beri’atic world or ‘olam hab-beri’ah is “world or sphere of
creation”; second of the four worlds (’olamim) which according to the Qabbalah
are emanated during the period of world manifestation. It is considered to
contain pure or spiritual forms and originant ideas, for in this ’olam creation
commences. This sphere is a continuation of the emanation of the first (’olam
’atstsiloth) and contains likewise, as do each of the ’olamim, a complete
tenfold Sephirothal Tree, though on ’olam hab-beri’ah certain ones only of the
ten Sephiroth find their especial field of action. The substance of the
beri’atic world is still of a highly ethereal or quasi-spiritaual type. Just as
the Prototype (Diyyuqna’) occupies the first world, so Metatron occupies the
second — also named Kursyai’ (the Throne). From this world is emanated the third
world, ’olam hay-yetsirah.
Interestingly, when written without Massoretic points, beri’ah comprises the
same letters — BRH — found in the Sanskrit the verbal root brih
(to expand) from which is derived Brahma, the first Hindu creator.
Berosus (3rd century BC) A Chaldaean priest of Belus living
in Babylon at the time of Alexander the Great, who translated the primeval
traditions of the human race down nearly to his own times. Fragments of this
work have been preserved by the historians and mythographers Apollodorus and
Polyhistor, and also Josephus, of the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. His cosmogony
shows that the Biblical stories of creation and deluge were derived from older
sources, as since has been confirmed by Babylonian archaeology.
Bes (Egyptian) [from besa, basu panther] A
deity of foreign origin, portrayed as a dwarf with large bearded head, flat
nose, protruding tongue, shaggy hair with an African headdress, girded with a
panther’s skin and tail. He is represented as a god of dance and music, also as
a god of war, and as a protector of children. In later periods he became merged
with some of the aspects of Horus. Perhaps in most aspects, however, Bes is the
Egyptian representation of the Latin Cupid.
Beth Elohim. See BEITH ’ELOHIM
Bethel Stone (Hebrew) Bēith-ēl The pillar of Jacob,
which he set up as a memorial or massebah at Bethel and anointed with oil
(Genesis 28:18, 22); a phallic stone similar to the Hindu linga. Blavatsky
writes: “How could anyone worthy of the name of a philosopher, and knowing the
real secret meaning of their ‘pillar of Jacob,’ their Bethel, oil-anointed
phalli, and their ‘Brazen Serpent,’ worship such a gross symbol, and minister
unto it, seeing in it their ‘Covenant’ — the Lord Himself!” (SD 2:473; BCW
12:101) See also
Betrayal of the Mysteries Ancient writers affirm that the
prime requisite of every candidate seeking entrance into the Mysteries was a
pledge of utter secrecy. Persons guilty of the betrayal of the Mysteries were
rigidly excluded from participation in the celebration of the rites. Likewise
those were debarred who accidentally were guilty of homicide or any
major crime, or who had been proved guilty of sorcery. If merely unfortunate
mediums, they were taken care of in hospitals maintained for that purpose in the
neighborhood of temples, and if possibl if consciously
traitorous or wicked, they were dealt with in other ways. Thus it is clear that
even in the degenerate days dating from before Plato’s time in the countries
surrounding the Mediterranean, abuse of occult power was considered one of the
most heinous of human offenses, for it struck directly at the roots of society,
and it was for this last reason that betrayal of the Mysteries, sorcery, or
similar offense was punished by the State itself.
The rules governing betrayal of the secrets were of the utmost severity, the
common penalty for such infringement being death. Yet this was a sign of
degeneration from the original purity of the Mysteries, for “never in any
circumstances has the power or the force of the Lodge, has the hand of a
Teacher, been raised in violence or in hatred against a betrayer, against the
unfaithful, no matter how grave the crime might have been. Their punishment was
in this: they were
left strictly to themselves; and the inner penalty was the
withdrawal of the Deathless Watcher, the higher self within, which
had been consciously and successfully invoked upon entrance into the Mysteries,
and in the higher degrees of initiation had been faced, literally face to face.
The early and automatic penalty was inner death by the soul-loss. The
betrayer lost his soul” (Fund 254-5).
Betylos, Baetylus (Latin) [from Greek
baitylos meteoric stone] Also betylus, baetyl, betyles. In Classical
antiquity a stone, either natural or artificially shaped, venerated as of divine
origin, or as a symbol of divinity. There were a number of these sacred stones
in Greece, the most famous being the one on the omphalos at Delphi. Likewise
there were the so-called animated or oracular stones. “Strabo, Pliny, Helancius
[Hellanicus] — all speak of the electrical, or electro-magnetic power of the
betyli. They were worshipped in the remotest antiquity in Egypt and Samothrace,
as magnetic stones, ‘containing souls which had fallen from heaven’; and the
priests of Cybele wore a small betylos on their bodies” (IU 1:332). In Persia
the but their origin was of far greater antiquity, for
“Lemuria, Atlantis and her giants, and the earliest races of the Fifth Root-Race
had all a hand in these betyles, lithoi, and ‘magic’ stones in general” (SD
2:346n). See also OPHITES
Beverage, Sacred. See SOMA
Be With Us, Great Day. See DAY BE WITH US, GREAT
BCW - H. P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings
BG - Bhagavad-Gita
BP - Bhagavata Purana
cf - confer
ChU - Chandogya Upanishad
Dial, Dialogues - The Dialogues of G. de Purucker, ed. A. L. Conger
Echoes - Echoes of the Orient, by William Q. Judge (comp. Dara
ET - The Esoteric Tradition, by G. de Purucker
FSO - Fountain-Source of Occultism, by G. de Purucker
Fund - Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, by G. de Purucker
IU - Isis Unveiled, by H. P. Blavatsky
MB - Mahabharata
MIE - Man in Evolution, by G. de Purucker
ML - The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, ed. A. Trevor Barker
OG - Occult Glossary, by G. de Purucker
Rev - Revelations
RV - Rig Veda
SD - The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky
SOPh - Studies in Occult Philosophy, by G. de Purucker
TBL - Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge (Secret Doctrine
Commentary), by H. P. Blavatsky
TG - Theosophical Glossary, by H. P. Blavatsky
Theos - The Theosophist (magazine)
VP - Vishnu Purana
VS - The Voice of the Silence, by H. P. Blavatsky
WG - Working Glossary, by William Q. Judge
ZA - Zend-Avesta