S—The nineteenth letter; numerically, sixty. In Hebrew it is the fifteenth letter, Samech, held as holy because “the sacred name of god is Samech”. Its symbol is a prop, or a pillar, and a phallic egg. In occult geometry it is represented as a circle quadrated by a cross. In the Kabbalah the “divisions of Gan-Eden or paradise” are similarly divided.

Sa or Hea (Chald.). The synthesis of the seven Gods in Babylonian mythology.

Sabalâswâs (Sk.). Sons of Daksha (Secret Doctrine, II., 275).

Sabao (Gr.). The Gnostic name of the genius of Mars.

Sabaoth (Heb.). An army or host, from Sâbô go to war; hence the name of the fighting god—the

“ Lord of Sabaoth ”.

Sabda (Sk.). The Word, or Logos.

Sabda Brahmam (Sk.). “The Unmanifested Logos.” The Vedas; “Ethereal Vibrations diffused throughout Space ”.

Sabhâ (Sk.). An assembly; a place for meetings, social or political. Also Mahâsabhâ , “the bundle of wonderful (mayavic or illusionary) things” the gift of Mayâsur to the Pândavas (Mahâbhârata.)

Sabianism. The religion of the ancient Chaldees. The latter believing in one impersonal, universal, deific Principle, never mentioned It, but offered worship to the solar, lunar, and planetary gods and rulers, regarding the stars and other celestial bodies as their respective symbols.

Sabians. Astrolaters, so called; those who worshipped the stars, or rather their “regents ”.

(See “ Sabianism ”.)

Sacha Kiriya (Sk.). A power with the Buddhists akin to a magic mantram with the Brahmans. It is a miraculous energy which can be exercised by any adept, whether priest or layman, and “most efficient when accompanied by bhâwanâ ” (meditation). It consists in a recitation of one’s “acts of merit done either in this or some former birth”—as the Rev. Mr. Hardy thinks and puts it, but in reality it depends on the intensity of one’s will, added to an absolute faith in one’s own powers, whether of yoga—willing—or of prayer, as in the case of Mussulmans and Christians. Sacha means “true”, and Kiriyang, “action”. It is the power of merit, or of a saintly life.

Sacrarium (Lat.). The name of the room in the houses of the ancient Romans, which contained the particular deity worshipped by the family; also the adytum of a temple.

Sacred Heart. In Egypt, of Horus; in Babylon, of the god Bel; and the lacerated heart of Bacchusin Greece and elsewhere. Its symbol was the persea. The pear-like shape of its fruit, and of its kernel especially, resembles the heart in form. It is sometimes seen on the head of Isis, the mother of Horus, the fruit being cut open and the heart-like kernel exposed to full view. The Roman Catholics have since adopted the worship of the “sacred heart” of Jesus and of the Virgin Mary.

Sacred Science. The name given to the inner esoteric philosophy, the secrets taught in days of old to the initiated candidates, and divulged during the last and supreme Initiation by the Hierophants.

Sadaikarûpa (Sk.). The essence of the immutable nature.

Sadducees. A sect, the followers of one Zadok, a disciple of Anti-gonus Saccho. They are accused of having denied the immortality of the (personal) soul and that of the resurrection of the (physical and personal) body. Even so do the Theosophists; though they deny neither the immortality of the Ego nor the resurrection of all its numerous and successive lives, which survive in the memory of the Ego. But together with the Sadducees—a sect of learned philosophers who were to all the other Jews that which the polished and learned Gnostics were to the rest of the Greeks during the early centuries of our era—we certainly deny the immortality of the animal soul and the resurrection of the physical body. The Sadducees were the scientists and the learned men of Jerusalem, and held the highest offices, such as of high priests and judges, while the Pharisees were almost from first to last the Pecksniffs of Judæa.

Sâdhyas (Sk.). One of the names of the “twelve great gods” created by Brahmâ. Kosmic gods; lit., “divine sacrificers”. The Sâdhyas are important in Occultism.

Sadik. The same as the Biblical Melchizedec, identified by the mystic Bible-worshippers with Jehovah, and Jesus Christ. But Father Sadik’s identity with Noah being proven, he can be further identified with Kronos-Saturn.

Safekh (Eg.). Written also Sebek and Sebakh, god of darkness and night, with the crocodile for his emblem. In the Typhonic legend and transformation he is the same as Typhon. He is connected with both Osiris and Horus, and is their great enemy on earth. We find him often called the “triple crocodile ”. In astronomy he is the same as Mâkâra or Capricorn, the most mystical of the signs of the Zodiac.

Saga (Scand.). The goddess “who sings of the deeds of gods and heroes ”, and to whom the black ravens of Odin reveal the history of the Past and of the Future in the Norsemen’s Edda.

Sâgara (Sk.). Lit., “the Ocean”; a king, the father of 6o,ooo Sons, who, for disrespect shown to the sage Kapila, were reduced to ashes by a single glance of his eye.

Sagardagan. One of the four paths to Nirvana.

Saha (Sk.). “The world of suffering”; any inhabited world in the chilio-cosmos.

Sahampati (Sk.). Maha or Parabrahm.

Saharaksha (Sk.). The fire of the Asuras; the name of a son of Pavamâna, one of the three chief occult fires.

Saint Martin, Louis Claude de. Born in France (Amboise), in 1743. A great mystic and writer, who pursued his philosophical and theosophical studies at Paris, during the Revolution. He was an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, and studied under Martinez Paschalis, finally founding a mystical semi-Masonic Lodge, “the Rectified Rite of St. Martin ”, with seven degrees. He was a true Theosophist. At the present moment some ambitious charlatans in Paris are caricaturing him and passing themselves off as initiated Martinists, and thus dishonouring the name of the late Adept.

Sais (Eg.). The place where the celebrated temple of Isis-Neith was found, wherein was the ever-veiled statue of Neith (Neith and Isis being interchangeable), with the famous inscription, “I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my peplum no mortal has withdrawn ”. (See “Sirius”.)

Saka (Sk.). Lit., “the One”, or the Ekas; used of the “Dragon of Wisdom” or the manifesting deities, taken collectively.

Saka (Sk.). According to the Orientalists the same as the classical Sacæ. It is during the reign of their King Yudishtira that the Kali Yuga began.

Sâka Dwîpa (Sk.). One of the seven islands or continents mentioned in the Purânas (ancient works).

Sakkayaditthi. Delusion of personality; the erroneous idea that “I am I ”, a man or a woman with a special name, instead of being an inseparable part of the whole.

Sakradagamin (Sk.). Lit., “he who will receive birth (only) once more” before Nirvâna is reached by him; he who has entered the second of the four paths which lead to Nirvana and has almost reached perfection.

Sakshi (Sk.). The name of the hare, who in the legend of the” moon and the hare” threw himself into the fire to save some starving pilgrims who would not kill him. For this sacrifice Indra is said to have transferred him to the centre of the moon.

Sakti (Sk.). The active female energy of the gods; in popular Hinduism, their wives and goddesses; in Occultism, the crown of the astral light. Force and the six forces of nature synthesized. Universal Energy.

Sakti-Dhara (Sk.). Lit., the “Spear-holder ”, a title given to Kartikeya for killing Târaka, a Daitya or giant-demon. The latter, demon though he was, seems to have been such a great Yogin, owing to his religious austerities and holiness, that he made all the gods tremble before him. This makes of Kartikeya, the war god, a kind of St. Michael.

Sakwala. This is a bana or “word” uttered by Gautama Buddha in his oral instructions. Sakwala is a mundane, or rather a solar system, of which there is an infinite number in the universe, and which denotes that space to which the light of every sun extends. Each Sakwala contains earths, hells and heavens (meaning good and bad spheres, our earth being considered as hell, in Occultism); attains its prime, then falls into decay and is finally destroyed at regularly recurring periods, in virtue of one immutable law. Upon the earth, the Master taught that there have been already four great “continents” (the Land of the Gods, Lemuria, Atlantis, and the present “continent” divided into five parts of the Secret Doctrine), and that three more have to appear. The former did not communicate with each other ”, a sentence showing that Buddha was not speaking of the actual continents known in his day (for Pâtâla or America was perfectly familiar to the ancient Hindus), but of the four geological formations of the earth, with their four distinct root-races which had already disappeared.

Sâkya (Sk.). A patronymic of Gautama Buddha.

Sâkyamuni Buddha (Sk.). A name of the founder of Buddhism, the great Sage, the Lord Gautama.

Salamanders. The Rosicrucian name for the Elementals of Fire. The animal, as well as its name, is of most occult significance, and is widely used in poetry. The name is almost identical in all languages. Thus, in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., it is Salamandra, in Persian Samandel, and in Sanskrit Salamandala.

Salmalî (Sk.). One of the seven zones; also a kind of tree.

Sama (Sk.). One of the bhâva pushpas, or “flowers of sanctity Sama is the fifth, or “resignation”. There are eight such flowers, namely: clemency or charity, self-restraint, affection (or love for others), patience, resignation, devotion, meditation and veracity. Sama is also the repression of any mental perturbation.

Sâma Veda (Sk.). Lit., “the Scripture, or Shâstra, of peace”. One of the four Vedas.

Samâdhâna (Sk.). That state in which a Yogi can no longer diverge from the path of spiritual progress; when everything terrestrial, except the visible body, has ceased to exist for him.

Samâdhi (Sk.). A state of ecstatic and complete trance. The term comes from the words Sam-âdha, “self-possession ”. He who possesses this power is able to exercise an absolute control over all his faculties, physical or mental; it is the highest state of Yoga.

Samâdhindriya (Sk.). Lit., “the root of concentration”; the fourth of the five roots called Pancha Indriyâni, which are said in esoteric philosophy to be the agents in producing a highly moral life, leading to sanctity and liberation ; when these are reached, the two spiritual roots lying latent in the body (Atmâ and Buddhi) will send out shoots and blossom. Samâdhindriya is the organ of ecstatic meditation in

Râj-yoga practices.

Samael (Heb.). The Kabbalistic title of the Prince of those evil spirits who represent incarnations of human vices; the angel of Death. From this the idea of Satan has been evolved. [w.w.w.]

Samajna (Sk.). Lit., “an enlightened (or luminous) Sage ”. Translated verbally, Samgharana Samajna, the famous Vihâra near Kustana (China), means “the monastery of the luminous Sage”.

Samâna (Sk.). One of the five breaths (Prânas) which carry on the chemical action in the animal body.

Sâmanêra. A novice; a postulant for the Buddhist priesthood.

Samanta Bhadra (Sk.). Lit., “Universal Sage ”. The name of one of the four Bodhisattvas of the Yogâchârya School, of the Mâhâyana (the Great Vehicle) of Wisdom of that system. There are four terrestrial and three celestial Bodhisattvas: the first four only act in the present races, but in the middle of the fifth Root-race appeared the fifth Bodhisattva, who, according to an esoteric legend, was Gautama Buddha, but who, having appeared too early, had to disappear bodily from the world for a while.

Sâmanta Prabhâsa (Sk.). Lit., “universal brightness” or dazzling light. The name under which each of the 500 perfected Arhats reappears on earth as Buddha.

Sâmânya (Sk.). Community, or commingling of qualities, an abstract notion of genus, such as humanity.

Samâpatti (Sk.). Absolute concentration in Râja-Yoga; the process of development by which perfect indifference (Sams) is reached (apatti).  This state is the last stage of development before the possibility of entering into Samâdhi is reached.

Samaya (Sk.). A religious precept.

S’ambhala (Sk). A very mysterious locality on account of its future associations. A town or village mentioned in the Purânas, whence, it is prophesied, the Kalki Avatar will appear. The “Kalki”is Vishnu, the Messiah on the White Horse of the Brahmins; Maitreya Buddha of the Buddhists, Sosiosh of the Parsis, and Jesus of the Christians (See Revelations). All these “ messengers” are to appear “ before the destruction of the world “, says the one; before the end of Kali Yuga say the others. It is in S’ambhala that the future Messiah will be born. Some Orientalists make modern Murâdâbâd in Rohilkhand (N.W.P.) identical with S’ambhala, while Occultism places it in the Himalayas. It is pronounced Shambhala.

Sambhogakâya (Sk.). One of the three “Vestures” of glory, or bodies, obtained by ascetics on the “Path”. Some sects hold it as the second, while others as the third of the Buddhahshêtras; or forms of Buddha. Lit., the “Body of Compensation” (See Voice of the Silence, Glossary iii). Of such Buddhakshêtras there are seven, those of Nirmanakâya, Sambhogakáya and Dharmakâya, belonging to the Trikâya, or three-fold quality.

Samgha (Sk.). The corporate assembly, or a quorum of priests; called also Bhikshu Samgha; the word “church” used in translation does not at all express the real meaning.

Samkhara (Pali). One of the five Shandhas or attributes in Buddhism.

Samkhara (Pali). “Tendencies of mind” (See“ Skandhas”).

Samma Sambuddha (Pali). The recollection of all of one’s past incarnations; a yoga phenomenon.

Samma Sambuddha (Pali). A title of the Lord Buddha, the “Lord of meekness and resignation”; it means “perfect illumination ”.

Samothrace (Gr.). An island famous for its Mysteries, perhaps the oldest ever established in our present race. The Samothracian Mysteries were renowned all over the world.

Samothraces (Gr.). A designation of the Five gods worshipped at the island of that name during the Mysteries. They are considered as identical with the Cabeiri, Dioscuri and Corybantes. Their names were mystical, denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpine, Bacchus and Æsculapius, or Hermes.

Sampajnâna (Sk.). A power of internal illumination.

Samskâra (Sk.). Lit., from Sam and Krî, to improve, refine, impress. In Hindu philosophy the term is used to denote the impressions left upon the mind by individual actions or external circumstances, and capable of being developed on any future favourable occasion—even in a future birth. The Samskâra denotes, therefore, the germs of propensities and impulses from previous births to be developed in this, or the coming janmâs or reincarnations. In Tibet, Samskâra is called Doodyed, and in China is defined as, or at least connected with, action or Karma. It is, strictly speaking, a metaphysical term, which in exoteric philosophies is variously defined; e.g., in Nepaul as illusion, in Tibet as notion, and in Ceylon as discrimination. The true meaning is as given above, and as such is connected with Karma and its working.

Samtan (Tib.). The same as Dhyâna or meditation.

Samvara (Sk.). A deity worshipped by the Tantrikas.

Samvarta (Sk.). A minor Kalpa. A period in creation after which a partial annihilation of the world occurs.

Samvartta Kalpa (Sk.). The Kalpa or period of destruction, the same as Pralaya. Every root-race and sub-race is subject to such Kalpas of destruction; the fifth root-race having sixty-four such

Cataclysms periodically; namely: fifty-six by fire, seven by water, and one small Kalpa by winds or cyclones.

Samvat (Sk.). The name of an Indian chronological era, supposed to have commenced fifty-seven years B.C.

Samvriti (Sk.). False conception—the origin of illusion.

Samvritisatya (Sk.). Truth mixed with false conceptions (Samvriti); the reverse of absolute truth—or Paramârthasatya, self-consciousness in absolute truth or reality.

Samyagâjiva (Sk.). Mendicancy for religious purposes: the correct profession. It is the fourth Mârga (path), the vow of poverty, obligatory on every Arhat and monk.

Samyagdrishti (Sk.). The ability to discuss truth. The first of the eight Mârga (paths) of the ascetic.

Samyakkarmânta (Sk.). The last of the eight Mârgas. Strict purity and observance of honesty, disinterestedness and unselfishness, the characteristic of every Arhat.

Samyaksamâdhi (Sk.). Absolute mental coma. The sixth of the eight Mârgas; the full attainment of Samâdhi.

Samyaksambuddha (Sk.) or Sammâsambuddha as pronounced in Ceylon. Lit., the Buddha of correct and harmonious knowledge, and the third of the ten titles of Sâkyamuni.

Samyattaka Nikaya (Pali). A Buddhist work composed mostly of dialogues between Buddha and his disciples.

Sana (Sk.). One of the three esoteric Kumâras, whose names are Sana, Kapila and Sanatsujâta, the mysterious triad which contains the mystery of generation and reincarnation.

Sana or Sanaischara (Sk.). The same as Sani or Saturn the planet. In the Hindu Pantheon he is the son of Surya, the Sun, and of Sanjna, Spiritual Consciousness, who is the daughter of Visva-Karman, or rather of Chhâyâ the shadow left behind by Sanjna. Sanaischara, the “slow- moving ”.

Sanaka (Sk.). A sacred plant, the fibres of which are woven into yellow robes for Buddhist priests.

Sanat Kumâra (Sk.). The most prominent of the seven Kumâras, the Vaidhâtra the first of which are called Sanaka, Sananda, Sanâtana and Sanat Kumâra; which names are all significant qualifications of the degrees of human intellect.

Sanat Sujâtîya (Sk.). A work treating of Krishna’s teachings, such as in Bhagavad Gitâ and Anugîta.

Sancha-Dwîpa (Sk.). One of the seven great islands Sapta-Dwîpa.

Sanchoniathon (Gr.). A pre-christian writer on Phœnician Cosmogony, whose works are no longer extant. Philo Byblus gives only the so-called fragments of Sanchoniathon.

 

Sandalphon (Heb.). The Kabbalistic Prince of Angels, emblematically represented by one of the Cherubim of the Ark.

andhyâ (Sk.). A period between two Yugas, morning-evening; anything coming between and joining two others. Lit., “twilight”; the period between a full Manvantara, or a “Day ”, and a full Pralaya or a “Night of  Brahmâ”.

Sandhyâmsa (Sk.). A period following a Yuga.

Sanghai Dag-po (Tib.). The “concealed Lord”; a title of those who have merged into, and identified themselves with, the Absolute. Used of the “ Nirvânees” and the “Jîvanmuktas

Sangye Khado (Sk.). The Queen of the Khado or female genii; the Dâkini of the Hindus and the Lilith of the Hebrews.

Sanjnâ (Sk.). Spiritual Consciousness. The wife of Surya, the Sun.

Sankara (Sk.). The name of Siva. Also a great Vedantic philosopher.

Sânkhya (Sk.). The system of philosophy founded by Kapila Rishi, a system of analytical metaphysics, and one of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy. It discourses on numerical categories and the meaning of the twenty-five tatwas (the forces of nature in various degrees). This “atomistic school”, as some call it, explains nature by the interaction of twenty-four elements with purusha (spirit) modified by the three gunas (qualities), teaching the eternity of pradhâna (primordial, homogeneous matter), or the self-transformation of nature and the eternity of the human Egos.

Sânkhya Kârikâ (Sk.). A work by Kapila, containing his aphorisms.

Sânkhya Yoga (Sk.). The system of Yoga as set forth by the above school.

Sanna (Pali). One of the five Skandhas, namely the attribute of abstract ideas.

Sannyâsi (Sk.). A Hindu ascetic who has reached the highest mystic knowledge; whose mind is fixed only upon the supreme truth, and who has entirely renounced everything terrestrial and worldly.

Sansâra (Sk.). Lit., “rotation”; the ocean of births and deaths. Human rebirths represented as a continuous circle, a wheel ever in motion.

Sanskrit (Sk.). The classical language of the Brahmans, never known nor spoken in its true systematized form (given later approximately by Pânini), except by the initiated Brahmans, as it was

pre-eminently “a mystery language”. It has now degenerated into the so-called Prâkrita.

Santa (Sk.). Lit., “placidity ”. The primeval quality of the latent, undifferentiated state of elementary matter.

Santatih (Sk.). The “offspring.”

Saphar (Heb.). Sepharim; one of those called in the Kabbalah— Sepher, Saphar and Sipur, or “Number, Numbers and Numbered ”, by whose agency the world was formed.

Sapta (Sk.). Seven.

Sapta Buddhaka (Sk.). An account in Mahânidâna Sûtra of Sapta Buddha, the seven Buddhas of our Round, of which Gautama Sâkyamuni is esoterically the fifth, and exoterically, as a blind, the seventh.

Sapta Samudra (Sk.). The “seven oceans ”. These have an occult significance on a higher plane.

Sapta Sindhava (Sk.). The “seven sacred rivers ”. A Vedic term. In Zend works they are called Hapta Heando. These rivers are closely united with the esoteric teachings of the Eastern schools, having a very occult significance.

Sapta Tathâgata (Sk.). The chief seven Nirmânakâyas among the numberless ancient world-guardians. Their names are inscribed on a heptagonal pillar kept in a secret chamber in almost all Buddhist temples in China and Tibet. The Orientalists are wrong in thinking that these are “the seven Buddhist substitutes for the Rishis of the Brahmans.” (See “Tathâgata-gupta”).

Saptadwîpa (Sk.). The seven sacred islands or “continents” in the Purânas.

Saptaloka (Sk.). The seven higher regions, beginning from the earth upwards.

Saptaparna (Sk.). The “sevenfold”. A plant which gave its name to a famous cave, a Vihâra, in Râjâgriha, now near Buddhagaya, where the Lord Buddha used to meditate and teach his Arhats, and where after his death the first Synod was held. This cave had seven chambers, whence the name. In Esotericism Saptaparna is the symbol of the “seven fold Man-Plant”.

Saptarshi (Sk.). The seven Rishis. As stars they are the constellation of ‘the Great Bear, and called as such the Riksha and Chitrasikhandinas, bright-crested.

Sar or Saros (Chald.). A Chaldean god from whose name, represented by a circular horizon, the Greeks borrowed their word Saros, the cycle.

Saramâ (Sk.). In the Vedas, the dog of Indra and mother of the two dogs called Sârameyas. Saramâ is the “divine watchman” of the god and the same as he who watched “over the golden flock of stars and solar rays”; the same as Mercury, the planet, and the Greek Hermes, called Sârameyas.

Saraph (Heb.). A flying serpent.

Sarasvati (Sk.). The same as Vâch, wife and daughter of Brahmâ produced from one of the two halves of his body. She is the goddess of speech and of sacred or esoteric knowledge and wisdom. Also called Sri.

Sarcophagus (Gr.). A stone tomb, a receptacle for the dead; sarc = flesh, and phagein = to eat. Lapis assius, the stone of which the sarcophagi were made, is found in Lycia, and has the property of consuming the bodies in a very few weeks. In Egypt sarcophagi were made of various other stones, of black basalt, red granite, alabaster and other materials, as they served only as outward receptacles for the wooden coffins containing the mummies. The epitaphs on some of them are as remarkable as they are highly ethical, and no Christian could wish for anything better. One epitaph, dating thousands of years before the year one of our modern era, reads :—“ I have given water to him who was thirsty, and clothing to him who was naked. I have done harm to no man.” Another: “I have done actions desired by men and those which are commanded by the gods”. The beauty of some of these tombs may be judged by the alabaster sarcophagus of Oimenephthah I., at Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn. “It was cut out of a single block of fine alabaster stone, and is 9 ft. 4 in.. long, by 22 to 24 in. in width, and 27 to 32 in. in height. . . . Engraved dots, etc., outside were once filled with blue copper to represent the heavens. To attempt a description of the wonderful figures inside and out is beyond the scope of this work. Much of our knowledge of the mythology of the people is derived from this precious monument, with its hundreds of figures to illustrate the last judgment, and the life beyond the grave. Gods, men, serpents, symbolical animals and plants are there most beautifully carved.” (Funeral Rites of the Egyptians.)

Sargon (Chald.). A Babylonian king. The story is now found to have been the original of Moses and the ark of bulrushes in the Nile.

Sarîra (Sk.). Envelope or body.

Sarisripa (Sk.). Serpents, crawling insects, reptiles, “the infinitesimally small”.

Sarku (Chald.). Lit., the light race; that of the gods in contradistinction to the dark race called

zahmat gagnadi, or the race that fell, i.e., mortal men.

Sarpas (Sk.). Serpents, whose king was Sesha, the serpent, or rather an aspect of Vishnu, who reigned in Pâtâla.

Sârpa-rajnî (Sk.). The queen of the serpents in the Brâhmanas.

Sarva Mandala (Sk.) A name for the “Egg of Brahmâ”.

Sarvada (Sk.). Lit., “all-sacrificing ” A title of Buddha, who in a former Jataha (birth) sacrificed his kingdom, liberty, and even life, to save others.

Sarvaga (Sk.). The supreme “World-Substance”.

Sarvâtmâ (Sk.). The supreme Soul; the all-pervading Spirit.

Sarvêsha (Sk.). Supreme Being. Controller of every action and force in the universe.

Sat (Sk.). The one ever-present Reality in the infinite world; the divine essence which is, but cannot be said to exist, as it is Absoluteness, Be-ness itself.

Sata rûpa (Sk.). The “hundred-formed one”; applied to Vâch, who to be the female Brahmâ assumes a hundred forms, i.e., Nature.

Sati (Eg.). The triadic goddess, with Anouki of the Egyptian god Khnoum.

Sattâ (Sk.). The “one and sole Existence ”—Brahma (neut.).

Satti or Suttee, (Sk.). The burning of living widows together with their dead husbands—a custom now happily abolished in India; lit., “a chaste and devoted wife”.

Sattva (Sk.). Understanding; quiescence in divine knowledge. It follows ‘generally the word Bodhi when used as a compound word, e.g., “Bodhisattva”.

Sattva or Satwa, (Sk.). Goodness; the same as Sattva, or purity, one of the trigunas or three divisions of nature.

Satya (Sk.). Supreme truth.

Satya Loka (Sk.). The world of infinite purity and wisdom, the celestial abode of Brahmâ and the gods.

Satya Yuga (Sk.). The golden age, or the age of truth and purity; the first of the four Yugas, also called Krita Yuga.

Satyas (Sk.). One of the names of the twelve great gods.

Scarabæus, In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the “spiritual body” of the lower, human Soul. Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, “the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it ”. (Rougé.) What is this so-called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it. “The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Daїmon ”, as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kâma Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its “god ”; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, “the sower of seed ”, is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarab beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that “Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus ”, or Horus in his transformation, the risen god. The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, “the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul” or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabæus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabæus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, house hold furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabæus Kheper signifies to be, to become, to build again.

Scheo (Eg.). The god who, conjointly with Tefnant and Seb, inhabits Aanroo, the region called “the land of the rebirth of the gods ”.

Schesoo-Hor (Eg.). Lit., the servants of Horus; the early people who settled in Egypt and who were Aryans.

Schools of the Prophets. Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom.

Séance. A word which has come to mean with Theosophists and Spiritualists a sitting with a medium for phenomena, the materialisation of “spirits” and other manifestations.

Seb (Eg.). The Egyptian Saturn; the father of Osiris and Isis. Esoterically, the sole principle before creation, nearer in meaning to Parabrahm than Brahmâ. From as early as the second Dynasty, there were records of him, and statues of Seb are to be seen in the museums represented with the goose or black swan that laid the egg of the world on his head. Nout or Neith, the “Great Mother” and yet the “Immaculate Virgin ”, is Seb’s wife; she is the oldest goddess on record, and is to be found on monuments of the first dynasty, to which Mariette Bey assigns the date of almost 7000 years B.c.

Secret Doctrine. The general name given to the esoteric teachings of antiquity.

Sedecla (Heb.). The Obeah woman of Endor.

Seer. One who is a clairvoyant; who can see things visible, and invisible—for others—at any distance and time with his spiritual or inner sight or perceptions.

 Seir Anpin, or Zauir Anpin (Heb.). In the Kabbalah, “the Son of the concealed Father ”, he who unites in himself all the Sephiroth. Adam Kadmon, or the first manifested “Heavenly Man ”, the Logos.

Sekhem (Eg.). The same as Sekten.

Sekhet (Eg.). See “Pasht”.

Sekten (Eg.). Dêvâchân; the place of post mortem reward, a state of bliss, not a locality.

Senâ (Sk.). The female aspect or Sakti of Kârttikeya; also called Kaumâra.

Senses. The ten organs of man. In the exoteric Pantheon and the allegories of the. East, these

are the emanations of ten minor gods, the terrestrial Prajâpati or “ progenitors ”. They are called in contradistinction to the five physical and the seven superphysical, the “elementary senses”. In
Occultism they are closely allied with various forces of nature, and with our inner organisms, called
cells in physiology.

Senzar. The mystic name for the secret sacerdotal language or the “Mystery-speech” of the initiated Adepts, all over the world.

Sepher Sephiroth (Heb.). A Kabbalistic treatise concerning the gradual evolution of Deity from negative repose to active emanation and creation. [w.w.w.]

Sepher Yetzirah (Heb.). “The Book of Formation”. A very ancient Kabbalistic work ascribed to the patriarch Abraham. It illustrates the creation of the universe by analogy with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, distributed into a triad,, a heptad, and a dodecad, corresponding with the-three mother letters, A, M, S, the seven planets, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is written in the Neo-Hebraic of the Mishnah. [ w.w.w.]

Sephira (Heb.) An emanation of Deity; the parent and synthesis of the ten Sephiroth when she stands at the head of the Sephirothal Tree; in the Kabbalah, Sephira,or the “ Sacred Aged ”, is the divine Intelligence (the same as Sophia or Metis), the first emanation from the “Endless” or Ain-Suph.

Sephiroth (Heb.). The ten emanations of Deity; the highest is formed by the concentration of the Ain Soph Aur, or the Limitless Light, and each: Sephira produces by emanation another Sephira. The names of the Ten Sephiroth are—1. Kether—The Crown; 2. Chokmah—Wisdom; 3. Binah—Understanding;

4. Chesed-—Mercy; Geburah—Power; 6. Tiphereth—Beauty; 7. Netzach—Victory; 8. Hod— Splendour;
9. Jesod_Foundation; and 10. Malkuth—The Kingdom.

The conception of Deity embodied in the Ten Sephiroth is a very sublime one, and each Sephira is a picture to the Kabbalist of a group of exalted ideas, titles and attributes, which the name but faintly represents. Each Sephira is called either active or passive, though this attribution may lead to error; passive does not mean a return to negative existence; and the two words only express the relation between individual Sephiroth, and not any absolute quality. [w.w.w.]

Septerium (Lat.)  A great religious festival held in days of old every ninth year at Delphi, in honour of Helios, the Sun, or Apollo, to commemorate his triumph over darkness, or Python; Apollo-Python being the same as Osiris-Typhon in Egypt.

Seraphim (Heb.). Celestial beings described by Isaiah (vi., 2,) as of human form with the addition of three pair of wings. The Hebrew word is ShRPIM, and apart from the above instance, is translated serpents, and is related to the verbal root ShRP, to burn up . The word is used for serpents in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Moses is said to have raised in the wilderness a ShRP or Seraph of Brass as a type. This bright serpent is also used as an emblem of Light. Compare the myth of Æsculapius, the healing deity, who is said to have been brought to Rome from Epidaurus as a serpent, and whose statues show him holding a wand on which a snake is twisted. (See Ovid, Metam., lib. xv.). The Seraphim of the Old Testament seem to be related to the Cherubim (q.v.). In the Kabbalah the Seraphim are a group of angelic powers allotted to the Sephira Geburah—Severity. [w.w.w.]

Serapis (Eg.). A great solar god who replaced Osiris in the popular worship, and in whose honour the seven vowels were sung. He was often made to appear in his representations as a serpent, a “Dragon of Wisdom ”. The greatest god of Egypt during the first centuries of Christianity.

Sesha (Sk.) Ananta, the great Serpent of Eternity, the couch of Vishnu; the symbol of infinite Time in Space. In the exoteric beliefs Sesha is represented as a thousand-headed and seven-headed cobra; the former the king of the nether world, called Pâtâla, the latter the carrier or support of Vishnu on the Ocean of Space.

Set or Seth (Eg.). The same as the Son of Noah and Typhon—who is the dark side of Osiris. The same as Thoth and Satan, the adversary, not the devil represented by Christians.

Sevekh (Eg.). The god of time; Chronos; the same as Sefekh. Some Orientalists translate it as the “Seventh”.

Shaberon (Tib.). The Mongolian Shaberon or Khubilgan (or Khubilkhans) are the reincarnations of Buddha, according to the Lamaists; great Saints and Avatars, so to say.

Shaddai, El (Heb.). A name of the Hebrew Deity, usually translated God Almighty, found in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Ruth and Job. Its Greek equivalent is Kurios Pantokrator; but by Hebrew derivation it means rather “the pourer forth”, shad meaning a breast, and indeed shdi is also used for “a nursing mother”. [w.w.w.]

Shamans. An order of Tartar or Mongolian priest-magicians, or as some say, priest-sorcerers. They are not Buddhists, but a sect of the old Bhon religion of Tibet. They live mostly in Siberia and its borderlands. Both men and women may be Shamans. They are all magicians, or rather sensitives or mediums artificially developed. At present those who act as priests among the Tartars are generally very ignorant, and far below the fakirs in knowledge and education.

Shânâh (Heb). The Lunar Year.

Shangna (Sk.). A mysterious epithet given to a robe or “vesture in a metaphorical sense”. To put on the “Shangna robe” means the acquirement of Secret Wisdom, and Initiation.

(See Voice of the Silence, pp. 84 and 85, Glossary.)

Shâstra or S’âstra (Sk.). A treatise or book; any work of divine or accepted authority, including law books. A Shâstri means to this day, in India, a man learned in divine and human law.

Shedim (Heb.). See “Siddim ”.

Shekinah (Heb.). A title applied to Malkuth, the tenth Sephira, by the Kabbalists; but by the Jews to the cloud of glory which rested on the Mercy-seat in the Holy of Holies. As taught, however, by all the Rabbins of Asia Minor, its nature is of a more exalted kind, Shekinah being the veil of Ain-Soph, the Endless and the Absolute; hence a kind of Kabbalistic Mûlaprakriti. [w.w.w.]

Shells. A Kabbalistic name for the phantoms of the dead, the “spirits” of the Spiritualists, figuring in physical phenomena; so named on account of their being simply illusive forms, empty of their higher principles.

Shemal (Chald.). Samâel, the spirit of the earth, its presiding ruler and genius.

Shemhamphorash (Heb.). The separated name. The mirific name derived from the substance of deity and showing its self-existent essence. Jesus was accused by the Jews of having stolen this name from the Temple by magic arts, and of using it in the production of his miracles.

Sheol (Heb.). The hell of the Hebrew Pantheon; a region of stillness and inactivity as distinguished from Gehenna, (q.v.).

Shien-Sien (Chin.). A state of bliss and soul-freedom, during which a man can travel in spirit where he likes.

Shiites (Pers.). A sect of Mussulmen who place the prophet Ali higher than Mohammed, rejecting Sunnah or tradition.

Shîla (Pali). The second virtue of the ten Pâramitâs of perfection. Perfect harmony in words and acts.

Shinto (Jap.). The ancient religion of Japan before Buddhism, based upon the worship of spirits and ancestors.

Shoel-ob (Heb.). A consulter with familiar “spirits”; a necromancer, a raiser of the dead, or of their phantoms.

Shoo (Eg.). A personification of the god Ra; represented as the “great cat of the Basin of Persea in Anu”.

Shûdâla Mâdan (Tam.) The vampire, the ghoul, or graveyard spook.

Shûle Mâdan (Tam.). The elemental which is said to help the “jugglers” to grow mango trees and do other wonders.

Shutukt (Tib.). A collegiate monastery in Tibet of great fame, containing over 30,000 monks and students.

Sibac (Quiché). The reed from the pith of which the third race of men was created, according to the scripture of the Guatemalians, called the Popol Vuh.

Sibikâ (Sk.). The weapon of Kuvera, god of wealth (a Vedic deity living in Hades, hence a kind of Pluto), made out of the parts of the divine splendour of Vishnu, residing in the Sun, and filed off by Visvarkarman, the god Initiate.

Siddhânta (Sk.). Any learned work on astronomy or mathematics, in India.

Siddhârtha (Sk.). A name given to Gautama Buddha.

Siddhas (Sk.). Saints and sages who have become almost divine also a hierarchy of Dhyan Chohans.

Siddhâsana (Sk.). A posture in Hatha-yoga practices.

Siddha-Sena (Sk.). Lit., “the leader of Siddhas”; a title of Kârttikeya, the “mysterious youth” (kumâra guha).

Siddhis (Sk.). Lit., “attributes of perfection”; phenomenal powers acquired through holiness by Yogis.

Siddim (Heb.). The Canaanites, we are told, worshipped these evil powers as deities, the name meaning the “pourers forth”; a valley was named after them. There seems to be a connection between these, as types of Fertile Nature, and the many-bosomed Isis and Diana of Ephesus. In Psalm cvi., 37, the word is translated “devils ”, and we are told that the Canaanites shed the blood of their sons and daughters to them. Their title seems to come from the same root ShD, from which the god name

El Shaddai is derived. [w.w.w.]

The Arabic Shedim means “Nature Spirits ”, Elementals; they are the afrits of modern Egypt and djins of Persia,.India, etc.

Sidereal. Anything relating to the stars, but also, in Occultism, to various influences emanating from such regions, such as “sidereal force ”, as taught by Paracelsus, and sidereal (luminous), ethereal body, etc.

Si-dzang (Chin.). The Chinese name for Tibet; mentioned in the Imperial Library of the capital of Fo Kien, as the “great seat of Occult learning”, 2,207 years B.c. (Secret Doctrine, I., p. 271.)

Sige (Gr.). “Silence”; a name. adopted by the Gnostics to signify the root whence proceed the Æons of the second series.

Sighra or Sighraga (Sk.). The father of Moru, “who is still living through the power of Yoga, and will manifest himself in the beginning of the Krita age in order to re-establish the Kshattriyas in the nineteenth Yuga” say the Purânic prophecies. “Moru” stands here for “Morya ”, the dynasty of the Buddhist sovereigns of Pataliputra which began with the great King Chandragupta, the grandsire of King Asoka. It is the first Buddhist Dynasty. (Secret Doctrine, I., 378.)

Sigurd (Scand.). The hero who slew Fafnir, the “Dragon”, roasted his heart and ate it, after which he became the wisest of men. An allegory referring to Occult study and initiation.

Simeon-ben-Jochai. An Adept-Rabbin, who was the author of the Zohar, (q.v.).

Simon Magus. A very great Samaritan Gnostic and Thaumaturgist, called “the great Power of God”.

Simorgh (Pers.). The same as the winged Siorgh, a kind of gigantic griffin, half phœnix, half lion, endowed in the Iranian legends with oracular powers. Simorgh was the guardian of the ancient Persian Mysteries. It is expected to reappear at the end of the cycle as a gigantic bird-lion. Esoterically, it stands as the symbol of the Manvantaric cycle. Its Arabic name is Rahshi.

Sinaї (Heb.). Mount Sinaї, the Nissi of Exodus (xvii., ii), the birth place of almost all the solar gods of antiquity, such as Dionysus, born at Nissa or Nysa, Zeus of Nysa, Bacchus and Osiris, (q.v.). Some ancient people believed the Sun to be the progeny of the Moon, who was herself a Sun once upon a time. Sin-aї is the “