Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl01130)

ISIS004.TXT (Isis Unveiled, 1st Edition) - BEFORE THE VEIL
   (continued)

As the great cause must always remain invisible and imponderable,
   they could prove their assertions merely by demonstration of its
   effects in this world of matter, by calling them forth from the
   unknowable down into the knowable universe of effects. That this
   astral light permeates the whole cosmos, lurking in its latent
   state even in the minutest particle of rock, they demonstrate by
   the phenomenon of the spark from flint and from every other
   stone, whose spirit when forcibly disturbed springs to sight
   spark-like, and immediately disappears in the realms of the
   unknowable.

Paracelsus named it the sidereal light, taking the term from the
   Latin.  He regarded the starry host (our earth included) as the
   condensed portions of the astral light which "fell down into
   generation and matter," but whose magnetic or spiritual
   emanations kept constantly a never-ceasing intercommunication
   between themselves and the parent-fount of all - the astral
   light. "The stars attract from us to themselves, and we again
   from them to us," he says. The body is wood and the life is
   fire, which comes like the light from the stars and from heaven.
   "Magic is the philosophy of alchemy," he says again. ["De Ente
   Spirituali," lib. iv.; "de Ente Astrorum," book i.; and opera
   omnia, vol. i., pp. 634 and 699.] Everything pertaining to the
   spiritual world must come to us through the stars, and if we are
   in friendship with them, we may attain the greatest magical
   effects.

"As fire passes through an iron stove, so do the stars pass through
   man with all their properties and go into him as the rain into
   the earth, which gives fruit out of that same rain. Now observe
   that the stars surround the whole earth, as a shell does the
   egg; through the shell comes the air, and penetrates to the
   centre of the world." The human body is subjected as well as the
   earth, and planets, and stars, to a double law; it attracts and
   repels, for it is saturated through with double magnetism, the
   influx of the astral light. Everything is double in nature;
   magnetism is positive and negative, active and passive, male and
   female. Night rests humanity from the day's activity, and
   restores the equilibrium of human as well as of cosmic nature.
   When the mesmerizer will have learned the grand secret of
   polarizing the action and endowing his fluid with a bisexual
   force he will have become the greatest magician living. Thus the
   astral light is androgyne, for equilibrium is the resultant of
   two opposing forces eternally reacting upon each other. The
   result of this is LIFE. When the two forces are expanded and
   remain so long inactive, as to equal one another and so come to
   a complete rest, the condition is DEATH. A human being can blow
   either a hot or a cold breath; and can absorb either cold or hot
   air. Every child knows how to regulate the temperature of his
   breath; but how to protect one's self from either hot or cold
   air, no physiologist has yet learned with certainty. The astral
   light alone, as the chief agent in magic, can discover to us all
   secrets of nature. The astral light is identical with the Hindu
   akasa, a word which we will now explain.

AKASA. - Literally the word means in Sanscrit sky, but in its
   mystic sense it signifies the invisible sky; or, as the Brahmans
   term it in the Soma-sacrifice (the Gyotishtoma Agnishtoma), the
   god Akasa, or god Sky.  The language of the Vedas shows that the
   Hindus of fifty centuries ago ascribed to it the same properties
   as do the Thibetan lamas of the present day. that they regarded
   it as the source of life, the reservoir of all energy, and the
   propeller of every change of matter. In its latent state it
   tallies exactly with our idea of the universal ether. in its
   active state it became the Akasa, the all-directing and
   omnipotent god. In the Brahmanical sacrificial mysteries it
   plays the part of Sadasya, or superintendent over the magical
   effects of the religious performance, and it had its own
   appointed Hotar (or priest), who took its name. In India, as in
   other countries in ancient times, the priests are the
   representatives on earth of different gods. each taking the name
   of the deity in whose name he acts.

The Akasa is the indispensable agent of every Kritya (magical
   performance) either religious or profane. The Brahmanical
   expression "to stir up the Brahma" - Brahma jinvati - means to
   stir up the power which lies latent at the bottom of every such
   magical operation, for the Vedic sacrifices are but ceremonial
   magic. This power is the Akasa or the occult electricity; the
   alkahest of the alchemists in one sense, or the universal
   solvent, the same anima mundi as the astral light.  At the
   moment of the sacrifice, the latter becomes imbued with the
   spirit of Brahma, and so for the time being is Brahma himself.
   This is the evident origin of the Christian dogma of
   transubstantiation. As to the most general effects of the Akasa,
   the author of one of the most modern works on the occult
   philosophy, Art-Magic, gives for the first time to the world a
   most intelligible and interesting explanation of the Akasa in
   connection with the phenomena attributed to its influence by the
   fakirs and lamas.

ANTHROPOLOGY - The science of man; embracing among other things:

Physiology, or that branch of natural science which discloses the
   mysteries of the organs and their functions in men, animals, and
   plants; and also, and especially,

Psychology, or the great, and in our days, so neglected science of
   the soul, both as an entity distinct from the spirit and in its
   relations with the spirit and body. In modern science,
   psychology relates only or principally to conditions of the
   nervous system, and almost absolutely ignores the psychical
   essence and nature. Physicians denominate the science of
   insanity psychology, and name the lunatic chair in medical
   colleges by that designation.

CHALDEANS, or Kasdim. - At first a tribe, then a caste of learned
   kabalists. They were the savants, the magians of Babylonia,
   astrologers and diviners. The famous Hillel, the precursor of
   Jesus in philosophy and in ethics, was a Chaldean. Franck in his
   Kabbala points to the close resemblance of the "secret doctrine"
   found in the Avesta and the religious metaphysics of the
   Chaldees.

DACTYLS (daktulos, a finger) . - A name given to the priests
   attached to the worship of Kybele ( Cybele). Some archeologists
   derive the name from [the greek word for] finger, because they
   were ten, the same in number as the fingers of the hand. But we
   do not believe the latter hypothesis is the correct one.

DAEMONS. - A name given by the ancient people, and especially the
   philosophers of the Alexandrian school, to all kinds of spirits,
   whether good or bad, human or otherwise. The appellation is
   often synonymous with that of gods or angels. But some
   philosophers tried, with good reason, to make a just distinction
   between the many classes.

DEMIURGOS, or Demiurge. - Artificer. the Supernal Power which built
   the universe. Freemasons derive from this word their phrase of
   "Supreme Architect." The chief magistrates of certain Greek
   cities bore the title.

DERVISHES, or the "whirling charmers," as they are called. Apart
   from the austerities of life, prayer and contemplation, the
   Mahometan devotee presents but little similarity with the Hindu
   fakir. The latter may become a sannyasi, or saint and holy
   mendicant; the former will never reach beyond his second class
   of occult manifestations.  The dervish may also be a strong
   mesmerizer, but he will never voluntarily submit to the
   abominable and almost incredible self-punishment which the fakir
   invents for himself with an ever-increasing avidity, until
   nature succumbs and he dies in slow and excruciating tortures.
   The most dreadful operations, such as flaying the limbs alive;
   cutting off the toes, feet, and legs; tearing out the eyes; and
   causing one's self to be buried alive up to the chin in the
   earth, and passing whole months in this posture, seem child's
   play to them. One of the most common tortures is that of
   Tshiddy-Parvady. [Or more commonly charkh puja]. It consists in
   suspending the fakir to one of the mobile arms of a kind of
   gallows to be seen in the vicinity of many of the temples. At
   the end of each of these arms is fixed a pulley over which
   passes a rope terminated by an iron hook. This hook is inserted
   into the bare back of the fakir, who inundating the soil with
   blood is hoisted up in the air and then whirled round the
   gallows. From the first moment of this cruel operation until he
   is either unhooked or the flesh of his back tears out under the
   weight of the body and the fakir is hurled down on the heads of
   the crowd, not a muscle of his face will move. He remains calm
   and serious and as composed as if taking a refreshing bath. The
   fakir will laugh to scorn every imaginable torture, persuaded
   that the more his outer body is mortified, the brighter and
   holier becomes his inner, spiritual body. But the Dervish,
   neither in India, nor in other Mahometan lands, will ever submit
   to such operations.

DRUIDS. - A sacerdotal caste which flourished in Britain and Gaul.

(Text scanned and uploaded by Alan Bain)
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