AIN SOF — The Infinite or Unlimited Absolute. Qabalistically, that which cannot be encompassed by understanding, but whose existence we readily acknowledge.
AIR — In physics, vacuum interference. In metaphysics, air is the element that pertains to dimensions and represents the tendency towards dispersion. Alice Bailey describes air as “the bridge between high and low.” (I would call all bridges “air.”) Commonly, air is the element attributed to the intelligence.
AIWASS/AIWAZ — Crowley’s alter ego. One of the 3 keywords of the Aeon of Horus (with Thelema and Agapé). Its number is 418. Aiwass has been attributed to Satan or Lucifer.
AKASHA — The fifth tattwa (Hindu element). The black egg of the spirit, i.e., the ether wherein everything is written down. In the Akashic records, found on every plane, no event, however insignificant, goes unmarked. If time be not a closed, self-repeating cycle, then the Akashic Records are of infinite length, having no beginning. The Guardians of the Akashic records have been equated with Thoth & Hermes as well as with Mnemosyne and the Muses. These were the guardians of the Well of Memory, from which the initiate must drink. In Norse mythology, the Guardian of the Well of Knowledge, beside the root of the world-tree, Yggdrasil, was Mimir (to whom Odin paid his eye).
HPB describes Akasha as “The Second Differentiation of evolving substance Chaos, Aether, Matter of the Monadic Plane ... often used where chaos or aether would be indicated.” Akasha is located in the sphere of Vibratory Sound, whence all auras derive.
AKHENATEN, AKHNATON or IKHNATON — (Means “Glorious Spirit of Aten.”) King Amenhotop IV — revered by many as the first Christ, the first monotheist, etc. (actually a maniac much hated by his people) — while still alive he incorporated himself as a God, along with Ra and Aten, forming a Trinity. All other Egyptian Gods were banished and removed from national monuments.
ALAYA — Universal soul or self of all things. Nyingpo amongst the Tibetans.
ALCHEMY — Chemistry isn’t the child of the Alchemists. It’s the legacy of “the puffers,” the charlatan imitators who tried to fake the production of real gold. Alchemy was called “The Hermetic Science” because it supposedly began with Hermes (or Thoth). Paracelsus saw it chiefly as a means of producing medicine. The classical goals of alchemy, however, have been to transmute lower metals into gold, to prolong life via an elixir, to search for the Mysterium Magnum, to create a humunculus and to find a universal solvent. This was to be accomplished via the manufacture or discovery of the Lapis Philosophorum, The Sophie Hydrolith, “Our Mercury” or “Philosopher’s Stone.” Other names for the “Stone” (achieved through the hieros gamos “marriage” of opposites) are: Virgin’s Milk, Cock’s Egg, Dry Water and similar contradictions. Generally, a cryptic vocabulary is used to disguise psychological and materialistic parallels, e.g. “red lion,” “nigredo,” etc. There are, supposedly seven stages of the alchemical Great Work, which are symbolical as well as chemical/metallurgical steps:
Calcination, Putrefaction, Solution, Distillation, Conjunction, Sublimation and Philosophic Congelation. There are also minor, intermediary steps, such as — Coloratio, Corrosio, Ceratio, Extractio, Separatio, etc.
We should bear in mind, however, that true alchemists consider the Great Work to be not merely aureofaction or the transmogrification of matter, but rather, as Alice Bailey points out, “to transfer consciousness to one of the higher vehicles ...” In other words, the integrity of the inner transformation is more important than any flashy theatrical effects.
According to some theories alchemy is the raising of vibrations. The vegetable kingdom resonates at the lowest level, the mineral kingdom at the highest vibrational level. In between vibrates the animal kingdom. It is for this reason that the extraction of plant essence is easy, while the extraction of mineral essence is extremely difficult. This is also why man, situated midway between the two kingdoms, can, by simultaneously distilling his own essence, assist the mineral.
From a psychological standpoint, any work, on the most general level, is the process of separating the important from the non-essential and the decision as to whether to continue further to distil that residue to any degree of perfection and finally the determination of when the whole is of a piece and completely finished. This process can apply to a work of art, to self-analysis, to the quest for the elixir of life or even, for that matter, to metallurgy — because all things are one.
It is no accident, for instance, that there is a correlation between the atomic numbers of modern physics and the ancient progression of metals in their metamorphosis into gold:
Lead ... 82
Thallium ... 81
Mercury ... 80
Gold ... 79
Platinum ... 78
The most important alchemical instruction is “Solve Et Coagula,” but an even more specific hint is “Flee contraction, seek dispersion.”
ALICORN — Unicorn horn. Another corpse in the bloody wake of Belief. Certain superstitious parts of the world already crowded to the point of asphyxiation (chiefly China, supplied by Islam) still insist that powdered rhinoceros horn will give them the one thing they crave above all else: reproductive fertility. Thus, to screw their propagating mania to the sticking point, vast nations will spare nothing to render this unique beast extinct, to turn the unhappy pachyderm into a fable.
ALLAH — The idol of Islam. “There is no Allah but Mohammed” — Al-Caphir.
ALLAT — Ancient tribal Bedouin goddess whom Muhammad drove out of the Ka’aba.
ALLITERATION — Beginning every word with the same letter. A means of generating poetic expression or magical cachets, e.g. Biceps, bestiaque blatimus bibiendi bibloi Beelzebubi (“By swallowing demonic books, we, the two-headed and the beasts, commence to babble.”)
ALMUCHEFI — Roger Bacon’s magic mirror — for reading the future — composed in accordance with the laws of perspective under the influence of a benign constellation and after “corpus modificabitur via alchemia.”
AL USSA — Another ancient, angelic goddess whom Mahomet drove out of the Ka’aba.
AMBROSIA — The Greeks confused nectar with ambrosia, exactly as we do. Originally it was thought that this “drink (not food!) of the gods” derived from some such word as ambrotos, that is, “immortal,” similar to Hindu amrita, “deathless.” We know now that the source is the Greek word for “blood” or “gore,” brotos (a cognate of our blood) referring to the blood sprinkled upon altars and idols in ancient times — as our word “to bless” derives from Anglo Saxon bletsian, “to sprinkle with blood.” This, combined with haima >AM-, formed the bloody “unguent” of religious ritual.
AMDO — Sino-Tibetan language of Eck.
AMENTA — In Grant’s reversed vision, Hell or the hidden (Amen) land (Ta). The hiding place of the midnight sun, Khephra, which is overseen by Set. In psychology this is the subconscious or dream (REM) state. Think of the Devil, however, i.e. the “Dual” or “Double,” as the antithesis of Being. Thus, the epitome of or the ultimate subconscious, is the True Will or “Hidden Sun,” the son (sic) behind the Sun. This is none other than Sothis or Sirius. To understand why this is so it is necessary to see that spheres of influence are infinite and as the planets of the solar system determine the course of our lives, so the Sirius complex governs our solar system in turn.
AMENTI — In Theosophy, the Realm of God. “Those only who know the names of the seven janitors will be admitted into Amenti forever, i.e. those who have passed through the seven