SourceAnimal Life on the Astral Plane
Leadbeater’s account of a short animal afterlife and gradual individualization.
Theosophical astral cosmologyLoading Lumitheca…
Codex
Concepts & Teachings
104 entriesBrowse by subject
A–Z index
Source
Art as Talisman in Yeats
The comparison between symbolic art and a talisman in Yeats’s introduction to A Book of Images.
W. B. Yeats’s introduction to W. T. Horton, A Book of Images (1898)
SourceAstral Body in Thought-Forms
The subtle desire-body through which the authors explain emotional forms and habits.
Theosophy, Besant and Leadbeater
SourceAstral Light in Lévi
The image-bearing medium through which Lévi explains visions and magical influence.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceAstral Vision
Claimed perception that sees an object’s interior and several sides at once.
Theosophical astral cosmologySourceAura
The layered luminous field described around living beings in Theosophy.
Theosophical astral cosmology
SourceBa
The mobile aspect of the soul in Tirard’s account, pictured as a human-faced bird able to leave and return to the mummy.
Egyptian funerary religionSourceBinah
Active Intelligence in Lévi’s symbolic scale, balanced by Wisdom and associated with the four Tarot threes.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
SourceBodhisattva
The Buddha-elect whose long preparation joins sacrifice to the power to enlighten others.
Buddhist traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamySourceCausal Body
Vehicle of the higher self that persists across births in the Theosophical account.
Theosophical astral cosmology
Ceres, Thetis and Alchemical Nurture
Maier pairs the nurture of Triptolemus and Achilles with the gradual strengthening of his philosophical stone.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceChesed
Mercy in Lévi’s symbolic scale: benevolent strength expressed through the benefactions of the four Tarot fours.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceChladni Figures in Thought-Forms
The patterned sound-plate and pendulum examples used as analogies in Besant and Leadbeater's account of thought-forms.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceChochmah
Wisdom in Lévi’s symbolic scale, represented by four rivers and associated with the Tarot’s numbered twos.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
SourceCymmhorth
Sikes’s term for a broader form of Welsh mutual assistance, including wedding bidding and assistance meetings.
Welsh customs as described by Wirt SikesSourceDharma
The ordering of conduct, expressed through duty and tested through loyalty.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamySourceDiaphane
The soul’s receptive surface for images within the astral light.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
SourceEgo and Will in Raja Yoga
The Ego is presented as the directing identity and the Will as its instrument for governing mental states.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga expositionSourceElemental Essence
Spiritual force descending into matter in Leadbeater’s system, distinguished from individual nature spirits and human-like creatures.
Theosophical astral cosmologySourceEtheric Double
A subtle bodily counterpart assigned to the physical plane in Leadbeater’s model.
Theosophical astral cosmology
SourceEvil Eye
The belief that a hostile or envious glance can harm another being.
Historical talisman traditions
SourceFairy Paths
Routes whose passage humans are warned not to obstruct.
Celtic fairy traditions
SourceFaust’s pact
The bargain whose decisive condition concerns a moment of complete satisfaction.
Goethe’s Faust, Part One
SourceFive as a spiritual number in Hall
The five-pointed star accompanies Hall’s account of spirit finding support in the four elements.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the Qabbalah
Four Guides to Alchemy in Maier
Nature, reason, experience and reading become a guide, staff, spectacles and lamp in Maier’s image of inquiry.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
SourceFox Transformations
The changes of appearance that let foxes pass as humans and later reveal themselves in Davis's legends.
Japanese fox legends, Davis retelling
SourceFree Choice in Dante
The power to admit or reject an affection despite its first arising.
Dante, Purgatory and ParadiseSourceGeburah
Austerity in Lévi’s symbolic scale, joining severity with goodwill and the justice represented by the Tarot fives.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
Golden Outside, Lead Within
The hypocrites’ bright garments conceal a burden that slows every step.
Dante, Inferno
Gyres in A Vision
Expanding and contracting figures through which Yeats represents opposed tendencies and their movement.
W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
High Ambition in Thought-Forms
The directed orange form used to distinguish ambition for useful work from ambition for personal acquisition.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceHod
Enduring accomplishment in Lévi’s symbolic scale, linking the triumph of mind over matter with the Tarot eights.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceInstruments of the Mind
Raja Yoga presents sensory organs, brain and nerves as instruments used by the mind.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga expositionSourceInternal Sensations
The source distinguishes feelings of one's own bodily condition from impressions referred to external objects.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga exposition
Jealousy in Thought-Forms
The watchful, snake-like form that changes as jealousy becomes mixed with anger.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceJesod
Foundation in Lévi’s symbolic scale, the basis of truth and belief represented by the four Tarot nines.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceKa
The personal double for whom the tomb remains a dwelling.
Egyptian funerary religionSourceKether
The Crown in Lévi’s symbolic scale, balancing Mercy and Austerity and corresponding to the four Tarot aces.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceKhu
The luminous aspect of the deceased in Tirard’s account, associated with radiance and the company of the glorified dead.
Egyptian funerary religion
Logos in Thought-Forms
The divine principle contemplated through globes, interwoven lines and threefold symbolism in Thought-Forms.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceMaat
Truth, justice, and cosmic order represented in funerary judgment.
Egyptian funerary religionSourceMalchuth
The Kingdom in Lévi’s symbolic scale, representing creation and completing the Tarot decade with the four tens.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
Margaret’s salvation
The dungeon’s final heavenly answer in Faust, declaring Margaret saved despite Mephistopheles’ opposing judgement.
Goethe’s Faust, Part OneSourceMaya
The principle of appearance and material manifestation in the collection’s Shaiva explanation.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamySourceMeaning of Colours in Thought-Forms
The colour correspondences used by Besant and Leadbeater to interpret their illustrations.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceMental Body
The subtle body that Thought-Forms presents as the material of thinking and the origin of thought-generated vibrations.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceMental Habits
The character-building lesson frames recurring mental tendencies as habits subject to the Ego's direction.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga exposition
Mercury and Vulcan at the Hearth
Two Mercuries and a furnace introduce Maier’s distinction between the subject’s inward qualities and the heat applied from outside.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceMicrocosm in Lévi
The little world through which human structure corresponds with the greater world.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
Music-forms
The coloured forms that Thought-Forms claims musical performances leave above their surroundings.
Theosophy, Besant and Leadbeater
Naaman’s Washing in Maier
The biblical washing in Jordan becomes Maier’s analogy for the purification of the philosophers’ brass.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceNetsah
Victory in Lévi’s symbolic scale, the enduring triumph of intelligence and justice associated with the Tarot sevens.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceNirvana
Release from the fetters of individuality, explained by the collection through a broken pot and open space.
Buddhist traditions, Nivedita and Coomaraswamy
Pallas and the Golden Rain in Maier
Pallas’s birth and a shower of gold at Rhodes become an explicitly allegorical reading of myth and alchemical wisdom.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Passing the Dragon Gate
Hayes connects the carp becoming a dragon with success in the old examination system.
L. Newton Hayes, The Chinese Dragon
Primary and Antithetical in A Vision
The contrasting objective and subjective tendencies that Yeats calls the two Tinctures.
W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
Protective Love in Thought-Forms
The wing-like form that Besant and Leadbeater associate with affection, peace and a wish to protect another person.
Theosophy, Besant and Leadbeater
Pure Affection in Thought-Forms
A revolving cloud used to picture quiet, unselfish affection in the book.
Theosophy, Besant and Leadbeater
Rebis and the Two Mountains in Maier
Mercury and Venus provide a double origin for the two-headed figure Maier calls Rebis.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceRecords of the Astral Light
The supposed memory of past events, only imperfectly reflected at the astral level.
Theosophical astral cosmology
Saturn and the Colours of Transformation
Maier reads Saturn’s swallowed stone through blackness, whiteness and redness in Emblem XII.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceSecond Sight in Celtic Testimony
Reported perception of people and events beyond ordinary sensory access.
Celtic fairy traditions
Selfish Greed in Thought-Forms
The clawed extensions used to depict acquisitive desire in Thought-Forms.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceSensation
Raja Yoga describes sensation as the mind becoming aware of an external object through the senses.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga expositionSourceSense Impressions
The book treats sensory impressions as material from which the mind forms thought.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga expositionSourceSephiroth in Lévi
The ten primary notions used as a scale for names, numbers and creation.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceSix and clear vision in Hall
Hall associates six with a latent faculty of clear vision and a returning movement towards its source.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the QabbalahSourceSub-conscious Mentation
The handbook places much mental activity outside the field of present awareness.
Ramacharaka’s Raja Yoga exposition
Symbol and Allegory in Yeats
Yeats’s distinction between images that continue to suggest meaning and images that can be translated into a fixed explanation.
W. B. Yeats’s introduction to W. T. Horton, A Book of Images (1898)SourceThe circle and unity in Hall
A plain circle accompanies Hall’s account of unity, thought and the purpose of human effort.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the Qabbalah
SourceThe Condemned Souls’ Distant Knowledge
Farinata’s explanation of foresight combined with ignorance of present events.
Dante, Inferno
The Epicureans in Dante’s Cemetery
The group defined in the poem by the belief that spirit dies with the body.
Dante, InfernoSourceThe eternal triangle in Hall
Hall uses the triangle to describe a threefold human nature brought into harmony.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the QabbalahThe Four Faculties in A Vision
Will, Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate: the four interacting faculties in Yeats’s 1925 model.
W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
The Geometrical Stone in Maier
A circle, square and triangle explain the transformation of a divided body into a renewed unity in Emblem XXI.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceThe Great Work in Lévi
Self-creation and the emancipation of the will within Hermetic transformation.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental MagicSourceThe Heart in Egyptian Judgment
The organ made witness to a person’s conduct at the balance.
Egyptian funerary religion
The Inferno of the Normal
Spare’s recurring image of ordinary existence shaped by conventional belief, limited knowledge and inner conflict.
Austin Osman Spare’s allegorical drawings and verse in Earth Inferno (1905)
The King’s Vapour Bath in Maier
King Duenech’s enclosed bath connects an alchemical allegory with historical theories of digestion, sweat and purification.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Limit on Ascent after Sunset
The mountain cannot be climbed upward once daylight has gone.
Dante, Purgatorio
The Lion and Winged Lioness in Maier
A fixed lion and flying lioness picture the difficult union of contrasting alchemical qualities.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Moon and the Gaze in Salomé
Conflicting visions of the moon frame a tragedy in which looking becomes desire, warning and, finally, exposure.
Literary symbolism in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, English edition of 1907
The Old Man in the Dew-House
A tree, an enclosed house and an ageing man form Maier’s allegory of renewal in Emblem IX.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Philosophical Coral in Maier
Coral supplies Maier with an image of growth, hardening and red colour in the philosophers’ stone.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Potter’s Art in Maier
The potter’s handling of earth, water, air and fire becomes a model for Maier’s account of transformation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceThe Prayers of the Living in Purgatory
Requests for prayer link the waiting spirits to people still on earth.
Dante, Purgatorio
The Salamander and Fixation in Maier
The salamander in the flames represents the resistance to fire that Maier calls fixation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)SourceThe square and crystallisation in Hall
Hall makes the square an image of matter, resistance and a problem that spiritual effort must work through.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the Qabbalah
The Sun and Its Shadow in Maier
Light and shade work together in Maier’s forty-fifth emblem, linking an astronomical image with alchemical transformation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Three Voices in Atalanta Fugiens
Atalanta, Hippomenes and the delaying apple name the three musical roles printed beside Maier’s first fugue.
Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Two Fountains in Maier
A hot fountain and a cold fountain picture Maier’s account of opposed qualities becoming one philosophical water.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Washerwoman in Atalanta Fugiens
The household washing scene through which Maier connects cleansing with the varied operations of the chymist.
Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Wolf and the Dog in Maier
An eastern wolf and a western dog turn the opposed forces of sulphur and Mercury into a struggle of mutual dependence.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)Thought-forms
The coloured shapes that Besant and Leadbeater describe as expressions of thought and feeling.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceThree Classes of Thought-Forms
The book’s division between likenesses, imagined objects and forms expressing qualities.
Theosophy, Besant and LeadbeaterSourceThree Jewels
Buddha, the teaching and the community, which the final narrative leaves as enduring points of reliance.
Buddhist traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamyShowing 96 of 104 entries
Show more entries