The Magician's Dictionary

EA

Reich's term for ufo. An ea is a "six-level" manifestation of alien fire consciousness". There is some question as to the
"reality" order of eas. On astral levels there can be trillions of them in all shapes and sizes, but Egregores aside, on our level, they may well be collective delusions imposed upon us by cetacean design, as psychic/pedagogical devices.

EASTER ISLAND

The marooned home of mankind's third race, which, after having stripped the island of trees, vegetation and animals, resorted to cannibalism and mass murder/suicide.

ECKANKAR

Founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell, author of The Key to Secret Worlds and former Scientologist. Based on the Tibetan teachings of two masters, Sudar Singh of India and Rebazar Tarzs of the Himalayas, it teaches bilocation, spirit contact, omniscience, OBE, astral traveling and confers deification onto its masters. Twitchell died in 1971. Eckankar's "Rod of Power" is now held by deified master Sri Darwin Gross.

ECTENIC FORCE

Power exerted when the mind operates at a distance through the influence of the psychode, or psychic "aether."

ECTOPLASM

The stuff, midway between matter and spirit, issued by mediums (from their mouths) to make apparitions visible to non-psychics. Such materializations, however short-lived, consume enormous amounts of energy and leave the medium prostrate and febrile. When ectoplasm is touched or subjected to light, the medium may experience considerable pain. Ectoplasm itself is a viscous, gluey substance of a decidedly unpleasant texture. It quickly dries up and disappears.

EDDY, MARY ANN MORSE BAKER GLOWER PATTERSON (1821-1910)

Founder of Christian Science, which was originally based on the healing techniques of Phonies Quimby, appropriated by Mrs. Eddy as her own. She wore a Latin cross, twisted slightly, like a St. Andrew's X.

EGREGORS

Watchers, thought-form entities created by visualization, ritual and such. They come in collective groups. They are somewhat like angels, except that they are relatively mindless and quite willing to follow orders. Some ufos may be egregores.

EGYPT

It is in Egypt that we encounter the roots of the entire Western tradition, including the Hermetic arts. If you would unravel the mystery of alchemy and qabalah, dedicate yourself to Egyptian studies. In Egypt we also find the roots of Greek philosophy and science. The Egyptians held that life was a miracle and they rightly worshiped creation as a product of magic. They drew no lines of difference (other than focus) in the degree or quality of consciousness between man, animal and god. Similarly, every member of Kamite society, from peasant to king, though not interchangeable, was of importance. Nor did they make the slightest division between religion, science, art and magic. The Gods were entities to be understood, so that their powers could be used to alter or maintain the natural course of things. (The Gods are actually forces of nature). An initiate, or magician, was simply a man of superior intelligence and will who had lined up his goals to parallel and augment those of the Gods. 20th Century America has been compared to Egypt in its predilection for building huge things and its materialistic philosophy. But America's psychotic compulsion to change everything as rapidly as possible, its lust for technological gimmicks and its attempt to control, counter and even destroy Nature, would have seemed blasphemous and meaningless to the Egyptians.

EIDOLON

Image, phantom or apparition; deliberately intended to confuse reflection or reflected image. The purpose of an idol is not worship but to serve as an aid to meditation in one's effort to enter the world of that particular god or phenomenon and in this sense an idol may be considered an eidolon, or generator of images. In a society where idols are forbidden or ignored, any ubiquitous object becomes a lure for metaphor, desire, standard, tradition, the will, etc. Thus, in many parts of the world, the automobile has come to take the place of a god or a monument and is a model for purpose and the major criterion for reality.

EIGHT BODIES, THE

The Egyptians maintained that we have not one but eight bodies, beyond the merely physical:

AB -- Consciousness
KHAT -- Unconscious
REN -- Prestige/collective unconscious (the "name")
KA -- The personality, astral body
KHAIBIT -- The out-of-body body, etheric double
SEKHET -- The elan vital
KU -- Omniscience
BA -- Atman

ELEMENTALS

Spirits of the seven elements in the process of involution (materialization), as contrasted with ourselves who are in the process of evolution (spiritualization). The British "Barddas" give us exemplars of the 5th element as "ether or vapor". Traditional magick sticks to the familiar quaternary: the gnomes of earth, the sylphs of air, the undines of water and the salamanders of fire. There god-names are, respectively: Nanta, Exarp, Hcoma and Bitom. Those elemental spirits who have attained "Tiphareth" consciousness are the "Kings" (Ghob, Paralda, Niksa, Djin). The Djin by the way, are the Persian equivalent of (fire) elementals.

One of the goals of the magician is to enlist the aid of the elementals as protection and to do his bidding. This relationship, however, is reciprocal. The Elementals need the magician in order to compress and funnel their natures into material expression - the magician needs the Elementals to assist him in raising his consciousness and vision. His relationship to them is colored by their individual natures. Thus, with Gnomes, one must be cheerful, industrious, patient and generous, avoiding greed and grossness. With Sylphs one should be quick and active, while eschewing frivolity and whim. With Undines sloth, idleness, vacillation and changeability are qualities to overcome, but one should develop flexibility and imagination. As for the Salamanders, their nature is strong and energetic, but we must refrain from irritability, irascibility and belligerence. They have enough volatile hostility of their own not to covet ours.

We also encounter the elementals in Thoth's "Ogdoad", the pre-creation gods, four frog-headed males and four serpent-headed females, who rule over the primeval waters, space/eternity, darkness and invisibility. How these connect to "earth, fire, water and air" is a problem for the historian. The male-female dichotomy is equally difficult to reconcile. Also, there are the four "children" of Horus -- Hapy (baboon-headed), Duamutef (jackal-headed), Qebehsenuf (hawk-headed and Imset (man-headed). They correspond to the tetramorph (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius).

ELEMENTS

The four principles of reality. They derive their nature from the phases of the Moon (Waxing, Full, Waning, Disappearing) and can be associated with the four points of the compass (see TETRAMORPH), but we should be wary of trying to assign a logical progression to them. For instance, science tends to see them merely as matter, energy, space and time. But contemporary scientific rationalism does not apply to ancient intuitional philosophy.

The ancients were correct to advise us not to try to separate the elements from one another (the "unified field" theory, however, doesn't apply to this aspect either). They take their being from the context of one another acting in unison. Thus Earth is the materialized, magnetic form which seeks contraction (coagula) and Air is the medium of space, freedom and dispersion (solve). Water is the dual flow of involution and evolution, the End and the Beginning, quicksilver-like Creation and Dissolution, Surface and Depth. The waters are divided into the upper waters of the potential and the lower waters of the actual. Water is the element of transition between the other elements. Fire, the plasmic state of transmutation, is the energy behind all things.

Each element is unique in its relationship to the others and in fully exercising that uniqueness, disappears. Water confluences the elements into a duality, Earth contains them all and is their united totality. Air is the separation in which they individuate themselves and vanish, while Fire is the uniqueness itself that extracts anything from its context, particularly the separation of "something" from Nothing, or vice-versa.

The quartering of the elements takes innumerable forms. Eliphas Levi, for instance, even gives a tetramorphic quaternity to Alchemy (Salt, Sulphur, Mercury and Azoth) and to the Qabalah (Macroposopus, Microposopus and the 2 "Mothers").

In Facing the Sphinx, Marie Farrington gives the number of elements as seven: earth, water, fire, air, ether or vapor, blossom (the seminal principle) and the Wind of Purpose (or Ghost). Amongst the Hindus the sixth was Bala-Rama, "the representation of masculine virility, the semen virile. The 7th was the summit and soul of the rest." In Ancient China, we observe earth, water, fire, wind and space (wood is only a physical element). The seven Latin verbs are Velle, Audere, Scire, Tacere, Revelare, Resurgere, Renunciare.

ELEMENTAR

Remnant of the cast-off envelope of a spirit that has moved on.

ELOHIM

(Hebrew, plural of "God", usually translated as "the divine plural" indicating the "singular", but the word is clearly, undeniably plural). As most of the book of Genesis comes from Egypt, Babylon and Persia, the word probably derives from Egyptian Ali, Babylonian ili, or the 7 Gods of the original Cosmos. The names of the original seven Hebrew, pre-Judaic elohim were probably, Ialdabaoth, Jehovah, Sabaoth, Adonai, Oreus, Eloeus and Astanphaeus. The last three have obviously been altered through Gnosticism, which explains their anomalous Graeco-Latin endings.

EMBLEM

The differences between sign, symbol, sigil, signal, seal and emblem are quite subtle. An emblem stands for something other than itself (e.g. Stars & Stripes, Swastika). A symbol is directly or metaphorically related in itself to that for which it stands -- a kiss is a symbol of love, an elephant is a symbol of power, etc.

EMIC REALITY

R. A. Wilson: "The thoughts, feelings and (apparent) sense impressions that people create by talking to each other (or by communicating in any symbolism); the semantic environment."

EMOTION

Most emotions (except joy) are unnecessary. The purpose of anger and fear is to ready us for appropriate action. When no action is possible or desirable, anger and fear are out of place and should be summarily dismissed from consciousness. Grief should also be overcome as quickly as possible through replacement, while depression should be overcome by activity. Not even love, in the usual sense of the word, is necessary. Love should be the enjoyment and exaltation of sharing with others, never a feeling of possession or jealousy, obligation or guilt.

EMPEDOCLES

(5th Century BC, of Acraga). The last of the Presocratic Shamans, whose company included Parmenides, Zeno, Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Pythagoras. He was a healer who sought to reconcile pragmatic this-worldliness and the metaphysical concerns of reincarnation, transcendence, etc.

EMPEROR & EMPRESS

In the Tarot these are the Arcana IV and III respectively, Heh and Daleth. They are the Father and Mother Gods of the Universe. On a lower plane of reality, they are mundane authority and the world interacting with itself.

THE EMPEROR AND THE STAR

These are Crowley's two greatest mysteries. We need to study them in tandem, because Crowley insists that the Emperor's proper letter is not Heh, but Tzaddi, so it must change places with The Star. Since these new attributions fly in the face of every tradition, let's try to guess why he does this.

By Crowley's reckoning, the star, Kokhav = 48 (a multiple of 12), the astrological number) or the "sphere of Venus". It represents Mercy (Gedulah or Chesed ). It also means, "strength" and "army". Forty eight divided by four is 14, the card of Temperance (or Alchemy), where we also have the angel pouring the waters. Qisar and Melech both translate as "Emperor". To continue with Crowley's reckoning, qisar would equal 371 ("Evil") and melech would equal 78 (that is, 15, or The Devil). However, if we use the ordinal value of the letters alone we get for Qisar and Melech, respectively, 60 and 33. Thirty Three is "sorrow, weeping" and a spring or fountain." Sixty is "watch-tower", excellence, sublimity, glory, pride, a Vision..." For kochav we get 28 or "Union, unity, power, and the mystic Netzach. . ." If we skip Aleph we get for Qisar and Melech, 60 and 30 ("Judah, Libra, Justice"). All of these seem appropriate enough for "The Emperor" but still do not explain why Crowley wants him to be the 17th card!

One reason that Crowley might have wanted to exchange The Emperor with Atu number 17 is so that (17 = 1 + 7 = 8) The Emperor (4) would serve as the higher exponent of Justice, which he had renamed "Adjustment" and already exchanged with Strength at 11. In his system, that places mundane authority (the Emperor) in the most subservient position and exalts Sirius (the Star) to the seat of greatest power at Atu 4. Meanwhile, Strength, now Atu 11, becomes the higher exponent of The Priestess (Atu 2), since 11 is the number of sorcery. This kind of highly rational manipulation of universal symbols is typical of Crowley's creative and very original approach to M/magic(k). The whole thing is extremely round-about and vexatious and looks like nothing so much as one of those infinitely-regressing whorls of cocaine-induced ratiocination, which were sometimes characteristic of Crowley. His paltry excuse that tzaddi is the letter that begins the word for Emperor "in many languages", is not meant to fool any serious student. It occurs only in Russian, Tsar, which is but a corruption of "Caesar."

Moreover, even if we assign the ordinal value to tzaddi (18), that translates as the notariqon of Yehi Aur ("Let there be light!"); Chai (the "living"); the antique serpent (Lucifer?); Hatred and "My Beloved". All of those seem strangely fitting for The Star, whereas "four" seems more natural to the Emperor if we think of him as the Tetragrammaton (IHVH). Apparently, that was precisely what AC wanted to avoid -- the ascription of IHVH to the Emperor. All the same, after all this numerology, we are no closer to the meaning of these cards. Indeed, we are farther at sea than ever!

EMPIRE, THE

(PKD and RAW). The Establishment; the Institution, the codification of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity upon us by violence, since its nature is violent. Fighting it is to be infected by its derangement. . . one becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies. "The Empire never died!" says PKD, meaning the "Roman" Empire. Against this Empire, says PKD, is the Plasmate.

ENANTIODROMIA

Things turning into their opposites. The tendency towards psychic balance (prostitute wanting to become a nun, clown wanting to be a tragedian actor, etc.). Enantiodromia has been called "The Law of reverse effect". Colin Wilson points out in Lord of the Underground that enantiodromia isn't really some deep psychic resistance, as Jung says it is, but is merely the result of the fact that when we are too anxious to do something well, we do it badly.

ENCHIRIDION

Collection of charms and pagan prayers against various perils.

ENNEAD

Refers generally to the Egyptian collection of the nine Heliopolitan gods: Atum, Geb, Isis, Nephthys, Nut, Osiris, Set, Shu and Tefnut. Later, other gods were added.

ENOCHIAN

Enoch was the son of Cain, father of Methuselah. Enochian was the pre-Babel language. Dr. Dee claimed it was the Angelic language used in his calls and aethyrs.

ENTAPHIOSIS

The burial of Osiris as enacted in the Mysteries. Burial is necessary in order for the seed to grow. The whole point to the dismemberment and scattering is the rebirth from planted seeds, which require time to germinate.

ENTASIS

Compensation in design for sake of appearance. Greek architects, for instance, realized that perfectly flat surfaces looked slightly concave, so they made them slightly convex to cause the surfaces to look flat. Thus PKD, who used this word extensively in his fiction, intended to convey that he was keenly aware of the crucial importance of minor distinctions between appearance and reality.

ENTELECHY

Actuality as opposed to mere potentiality.

ENTROPY

The level of entropy is the degree of disorder in a given system. This is the reverse of the degree of information that is present. Hence negentropy is the build-up of information, increase of meaning. Life is the attempt to reverse the natural deterioration of matter.

EPAGOMENAL

An intercalary, or extra day not attributed to any day of the week or month and standing outside the year. One or two epagomenals are necessary when employing calendars with months of exactly 29 days. ("A year and a day" as the old expression has it). In the Newtime calendar, since every month begins on Monday, the epagomenal is not one of the days of the week and so has no designation other than "non-day" or "zero-day" or "Year-end Day".

EPHAH

Exoterically, merely an ancient Hebrew measure for dry goods. Esoterically, a dark, wing-covered phase of the mind. Thus, also, one of the heavenly chariots.

EPHOD

A linen garment worn by ancient priests, incorporating divinatory objects, thus representing the entire prophetic system. It is probably the original breastplate of the lamen.

EPIGENETIC CODING

The question of how an evolutionary morphogenetic "mutation" can be transmitted is very difficult to answer. Language, writing, etc. are analogies within a human context, but "genetic information" is actually an illusion.

EPOPT

Originally, an initiate in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a "witness". The Epopteia culminated in the revelation of "things done, said and shown." Now an "epopt" refers to anyone initiated into any mystical body.

ERISTIC

Discordian. Eris, the Goddess, created instant discord by throwing a golden fruit labeled "For the Fairest" into the hall where the Gods were holding a celebration.

ESCHATONIC IMPLOSION

Apocalyptic fractal corresponding to 1999 as a mini-1968 downswing. Idiopathic aeonic terminals are encapsulated within larger temporal patterns, some of which coalesce synchronistically into endemic gestalts. The winding down of the 20th Century will increasingly manifest as a fractalled semi-schizoid chaote of infinite catatonic omphaloscopy. (See TIMESCAPE ZERO).

ESSENES

Christ -- myth or man -- was only theoretically attached to the Essenes. It's an assumption added on much after the fact. The "Messiah" of Xtianity was a formidable figure who had to be made palatable by throwing in a generous dollop of humanistic Essenianism.

So of course there would be similarities between the Essenes and the Xtians. The Xtians (as they have done with every rival for human attention ever since) took over the Essene trappings -- under linens, cap and bootstrap! If Xtianity could swallow an elephant, it would. A thousand years from now, if the world still stood, Elizabeth Clare Prophet would be hailed as the last Xtian saint because she raked in all the clutter of 20th Century occult cults, including the Anti-Christ, under one final, eschatological banner of Jesus.

It's interesting to me that the early Xtians also tried to swallow up their arch-rival, Gnosticism, along with Essenianism (the Essenes and Gnostics held many ideas in common), but while it tried to hold onto the Essenianism, it had to spit out the Gnostic medicine.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more hope I hold out for the Keristans, whom the Christians probably will never appropriate, because they can't. Its founder, an old, white-bearded geezer with young, hippie-like disciples, claims to have been told by a "voice" in his head at age 11 to form a new religion. In the second place, their mythos -- as written in comic book bible -- has Christ selling his (tennis) shoes to a cheap, plastic, children's doll, who is the true Goddess. What's more, the doll is brown.

est

Founded in 1971 by Werner Erhard (nee Jack Rosenberg), stands for "Erhard's Seminar Training". It is a combination of Yoga, Dale Carnegie, Gurdjieff, Zen Buddhism, Scientology, Sado-Masochism and Self-gratification.

ESTABLISHMENT FLAKE

One who holds to pre-apocalyptic consensual thinking, such as anti-earth politics, kinship values and money-centered, disapproval-leadership in the face of overwhelming evidence of the worthlessness of such attitudes.

ETIC REALITY

(RAW). Hypothetical reality that has not been filtered through a human nervous system.

EVOCATION

When we evoke an entity, we draw upon our own stock of indwelling spirits. Thus, to evoke is to call up what is already present in us. In the same way, we evoke mental images from the vast storehouse within us. Presumably, then, to invoke a mental image (as opposed to evoking it), would be to call down a vision, a ufo, or whatever from outside. Confusion arises from the fact that self and other are one and to draw from the Self is ultimately to draw from the All.

EVOLUTION

For the past hundred years or more a war has been going on in academic circles between the theory of evolution and the belief in Creation. Darwinian evolution, however, must not be applied to history. Nor must we think of Creation as anything less than ongoing at all times, including the present moment.

Every plant, every animal, even matter itself is conscious, not merely sentient. Consciousness, however, assumes many modalities, each having the same goal, which is self-transcendance. The difference between an elephant and a fly is not that the one is more conscious or transcending than the other, but that the fly's attention is focused and fixed, whereas the elephant's is generalized and reprogrammable for adapting to new circumstances. Everything is creatively evolving upward in an infinite spiral. All Being necessarily undergoes many transitions and existence must encompass all experience.

Ultra-Darwinist theories no longer see biological evolution as "survival of the fittest" nor as random happenstance. Alien cells tend, if given time, to merge cooperatively with their host. Variations of species are not preceded by steps, but by quantum "leaps" (punctuations) that suggest recognition of environmental exigencies and co-evolutionary trends. There is also macro-evolution. The entire world is approaching its own evolutionary acme (Moksha). When the Bodhi-culmination transpires, Nirvana will become available to all.

EXISTENCE

That which calls itself into being out of the Void. Most metaphysical systems are agreed that matter is "dirt", or at least less perfect than the Void. Just as the manifest world is infinite in its variety of potential forms of matter, so the void is infinite in its parade of anti-potential forms of non-being. From a strictly logistical point of view, the imbalance within the spotless Void arises as one potentiality differentiates itself from another in its degree of anti-substantiation and non-manifestation. Therefore, some of these "nothingnesses" have more "substance" than others, which thereby creates an unevenness from which a negentropic "singularity" has to develop. Thus existence breaks forth, or "falls", in a further effort to maintain the balance, and consequently to know itself. Thereafter, new knowledge necessarily continues to create itself and to expand consciousness to the limits, as it were, of The Infinite.

EXISTENTIALISM

Compare the following two dictionary definitions:

Funk & Wagnall, 1947:

"Sartre's development. Concerned with man's responsibility for what he is. A man is a sum total of his acts, not of his ambitions or potentialities. He exists only in his fulfillment. He is confronted with choice, but is alone in his choosing, lacking external aid, authority or value."

Webster, 1966:

"Literary, philosophical cult of nihilism and pessimism, popularized in France after WWII, chiefly by Sartre: it holds that each man exists as an individual in a purposeless universe, and that he must oppose his hostile environment through the exercise of his free will. "

EYE IN THE PYRAMID

Actually, the radiating eye occupies a triangle which is not really part of the pyramid, but just resting at its top. The pyramid is unfinished. The capstone (as in the Great Pyramid of Egypt) is missing. This is called by the Masons, "the stone rejected by the builders". (The phrase has many other applications as well). The reason is that the eye (spiritual consciousness) philosophically takes the place of material substance. Some believe, than which nothing could be farther from the truth, that the "stone rejected by the builders" is the historical Christ. In that case the completed pyramid would amount to little more than another dreary reaffirmation of the Xtian tradition. Fortunately, this view is totally unsupported by historical, archaeological or arcane evidence.

The eye is the eye of Ra, Wudjat, which in hieroglyphics means "to make" or "create". The symbol on the U.S. dollar bill was suggested by the founders of America, who were not Xtians, but Freemasons and occultists. Superficially it means that whatever we do must be inspired by superconscious insight, not by petty quests for private power or selfish profit. It can be attributed, amongst other things, to the bringing down of consciousness from higher to lower. John Michell, in his Dimensions of Paradise says, "The 'Lamb in the midst of the throne,' in Revelation 5:6 has 'seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God.' The geometer's image of this creature is the heptagram with seven horns and seven triangles containing eyes. The eyed triangle of the heptagon, which has a base angle (51 degrees 26 minutes) nearly the same as that of the Great Pyramid of Egypt (51 degrees 51 minutes), may be the origin of the mystic symbol of the eye in the pyramid." The Eye in the Triangle is the title of Israel Regardie's biography of Aleister Crowley. (See PYRAMID).