The Magician's Dictionary

KACHINAS

Semi-divine spirits in the Hopi religion. They are embodied in sacred dolls. Participants in donning the masks and enacting the roles actually become the kachinas themselves.

KAHUNA

Hawaiian priest-magician. Similar to Semitic words for "priest" (Arabic kahin, Hebrew kohen).

KALA

In Hinduism, this is the word for Time as the source of all things. In Tantric philosophy, kalas are out-flowings from time (scents, flowers, exudations, emanations, phenomena), particularly referring to the human "kalas" or numerous body fluids and products: blood, semen, milk, sweat, earwax, etc. of which the Tantrists number over thirty (occidental medicine acknowledges no more than 23-24). Apparently, many extra Tantric kalas are produced by prolonged and obscure sexual rituals. One of these is called the sadhakya kala and is the most secret of all -- "the essence where time stands still; where time is not," says Grant. There is also bindhu, a fluid that bisexualizes men and women, obtainable only through Tantric practice; and there is melatonin produced by the pineal gland from serotonin found in the hypothalamus, the blood, dates, bananas, plums and ficus religiosus, or the fig of the Bo-tree of Buddha. Grant used the word in the same sense as above, but also in his own special sense as a synonym for the Tunnels of Set, which he sees as types of "secretions". (See TUNNELS OF SET.)

KALI YUGA

1/1000 of Kalpa. This age in which we are living is the Kali Yuga, or "Dark Age," and lasts 432,000 years, having begun in 3102 B.C. It is well known, however, that the ancient Indic method of counting years was highly arbitrary from our point of view. Obviously, we have come down to the final days of the Kali Yuga -- 3102 B.C. is the mirror of 2013 A.D., the Mayan end of time.

KALKI

The final avatar of Vishnu (see VISHNU AVATARS) who arrives on a white horse to herald the end of the world.

KALPA

A day of Brahma. 4,320,000,000 years long, divided unequally into 4 ages. Satya Yuga was the first age (Golden Age).

KAMA LOKA

The receiving station of the astral plane; the so-called "desire-world" where the dead first arrive. It is this place that the NDE people refer to as "the other side." It takes on the illusory character of anything the newly arrived spirit most desires. Muslims immediately believe they have entered Paradise, Xtians invariable encounter Jesus here. After a very short time, these errors of perception are corrected.

KAMEA

Magic square in which each column and rank add up to the same totals. There are kameas for each of the seven classical planets, as follows (in which I have herewith corrected the error for the Venus Kamea in regardie's Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, 1985, Falcon Press):

KAPPA

Ancient mountain or phallic gods of Japan. Besides the Kappa, however, there were the gods Ohonamochi and Sukunabikona, who originated the forms of religion. And there was the founder of the Japanese Empire, Jimmu Tenno, who first taught magical formulae.

KAREZZA

A discipline of Tantric Yoga adapted occidentally by Thomas Lake Harris (d. 1906). It builds up sexual energy by stimulation, but blocks the ejaculation of semen. This results in the creation of astral entities for occult uses.

KETHER

the "Crown" of the Sephir Yetzirah. Corresponds, in Buddhism, to Nirvana (see NIRVANA). It is the very first of the power chakras of the Qabalah and is the link to the "outside," the Ain, or Void, which is "Universe B."

KEYS OF MAGICAL DISCOVERY AND PARTICIPATION

Yoga: self-control
Tarot: archetypes
Astrology: time patterns
Ritual: participation in eternal reality orders
Scrying: evocation of visions
Dreams: spontaneous visions
I Ching: randomness superimposed on frozen reality
Psychedelics: differences of perspective and insight, plus avenues of perichoresis
Death or Thanatomimesis: means of taking the self apart and putting it back together again in a new way.

KHABS AM PEKHT

Depending upon the Egyptian translation you favor, it can mean either "Cultivate Inner Strength" or "Light in Extension." the phrase is a teaching imperative. As the light descends it spreads out, as in a pyramid, therefore to teach is to extend illumination on any given level. As the base extends, so the apex necessarily rises. Compare to the corruption, "Konx Om Pax." Khabs is the star in Khu, or magical power.

KHEPERA (or KHEPRI)

The Rebirth Deity, Ra as the "dung beetle," which is a pun in the Egyptian language for "becoming." He may or may not have wings. This is Ra's "becoming" form as he crawls through the underground tunnel of Tuat, whence he is about to escape and re-assume his body of light so that he can rise up again to Nut, the sky. The scarabaeus, like everything else, is only a momentary point of transition. We the earthbound are all "midnight suns," imprisoned in Kheperah.

KIA

"The eye of central mystical vision." (The "atmospheric eye.") (See ZOS.)

KISMET

Arab version of Destiny in which everything is "written" and nothing can be changed. From Arabic qasama, "lot; to divide," cognate of Greek kosmein, "to order" > cosmos. "Fate" is the ultimate excuse for laziness and doing nothing to change reality.

The important events of our lives seem to derive from the most random and trivial accidents, and yet if we look more closely, it's plain we engineer them more than we realize. We throw ourselves into the paths of the juggernauts we serve and if we miss our destiny today, we will run into it tomorrow. Our lives might be different as to some of the trappings and surroundings if we were to change certain events, but the spirit of our history and our final shape would probably be the same.

KIU-TI

One of the books of HPB's transmission from the Tibetan masters.

KNOWLEDGE

"Knowledge is the excrement of experience." -- Austin Osman Spare.

KOAN

A paradoxical Zen riddle designed to occupy the reason, so that the unconscious mind can be freed to look for Mu and experience enlightenment (see MU). The person whose ego is not ready to stand aside will always attempt to give an answer to a koan.

KONX-OM-PAX

Ancient Greek power words that some say were shouted during the Eleusinian Mysteries, during the ecstasy of initiation (i.e., "the descent of the light"). The words are, however, not Greek, but a corruption of Khabs Am Pekht, taken from the Egyptian Isis cult.

KOOT HOOMI

One of the Chohan entities, initiates or "secret chiefs" contacted by HPB and Alice Bailey. Koot Hoomi is responsible for the creation of Theosophy.

KORAX

<"Nicticorax" or Nicky Koracks = Lucifer/Christ, the "night-heron." In alchemical lore the Nigredo (or "darkening") is a crow or raven (i.e., the Devil) when it enters the darkness, but then is reborn in the morning light (Albedo, transformed as a heron.

KUNDALINI

Sex power (Hindu serpent). The goddess in the form of a fire-serpent, who lies sleeping at the base of the spine. It is the supreme power of magic in man.

KURGASIAX

The 21st kala is the dark equivalent of the Wheel of Fortune, based not on Fate or Chance, but upon curse and malevolence. The accompanying depiction of the card isn't quite perfect. Anubis should be more gleeful and the woman more obviously a corpse. The wheel itself should be slightly smaller, so that the wicked witch can hold it in her hand, since she is a guise of Heimarmene and in charege of it. Her crown should more obscurely resemble the crown of Maat. Nightmares (she is the deliverer thereof) ought to be visible in the smoke shapes rising up out of the flames of burning civilization.

The wheel is the mark of the beast or Set, which, in turning, activates the powers of the sphinx. The cross is the place of crossing over (Daath), gateway to the Abyss. The tails are the three backward entries connecting to Daath in the sephiroth of Pluto, Jupiter and Venus (Kether, Chesed and Netzach).

Kurgasiax, more than any other of the dungeons, illlustrates how the dark and light sides are inextricably linked. This is the same wheel as the Wheel of Fortune, except that it is viewed here as descending. The Wheel of Kurgasiax moves from high to low, day to night, life to death, whereas the the Wheel of Fortune is rising out ot the negative into the positive. It's called "The Roasting Spit" because it turns to face the the flames of hell after every revolution. (See WHEEL.)

Nevertheless, the magical siddha is "ascendancy", since what sinks most deeply is a reflection of the highest. So the Ray of the Scepter is the weapon of choice in the magickal working. Grant says Crowley regarded this as the formula of Gomorrah (number 315). In esoteric tradition Sodom is the masculine mode and Gomorrah the feminine.