- Dæmon
- (See Demon)
- Dadhichi:
- A Hindu sage who gave his bones to the
gods to make a thunderbolt
- Dainyayoga:
- In Vedic astrology: A combination of
planets which give rise to poverty. Usually it is caused by the
malefic conjunctions of house rulers with the rulers of the 6th, 8th
or 12th houses
- Daitya:
- A Hindu demon, son of Diti
- Daiva:(Old Persian,
"evil god," "demon")
- Persian divinities opposed to the high god. A collective term for
archaic Indo-European divinities, it was demonized by the Zoroastrian
tradition.
- Dakini:
(Sanskrit)
- A female spiritual being in Buddhist
Tantrism. Two major types are mentioned, worldly dakini, representing
non-Buddhist values, and supermundane dakini, who protect and convey
the wisdom of enlightenment. Levels of supermundane dakinis include
feminine embodiments of Buddhahood itself; their retinue of active
manifestations; and their messengers, who may appear to people at any
time. Dakinis are both purely spiritual beings revealed in visions and
human women. They are frequently depicted as dancing in Tibetan
iconography
- Daksha :(Sanskrit)
- A lord of created beings
- Dalai Lama:Tibetan dalai, "ocean," ; lama,
"no one is superior to"
- Spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, considered an emanation
of Avalokiteshvara, an enlightened being who embodies the compassion
of past, present, and future Buddhas. Each Dalai Lama, regarded as a
reincarnation of the previous one, is identified through a combination
of oracles, dreams, and visions. The present and
fourteenth Dalai Lama, born in eastern Tibet in 1935, has lived in
exile in India since 1959, nine years after the Chinese takeover of
Tibet. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for peaceful efforts
to preserve Tibetan culture in his homeland and among refugee
communities. He has worked to democratize the Tibetan government in
exile, and is considering new methods for choosing the next Dalai
Lama.
- Dama: (Sanskrit)
- Self-control. Control of
the senses
- Darshan: (Sanskrit- "seeing"
- Achieving enlightenment from the presence of one;s guru. When
the two become one.
- Dashaa: (Sanskrit)
- In Vedic Astrology, a planetary period
or system of directions. Also means the actual major planetary
period itself. There are many of these the most used being
vi.nshottarii or 120 year cycle system. Others are ashhTottari
(108), Chatursheetisama (84), Dwadashottari (112), Dwisaptatisama
(72), Panchottari (105), ShashhTisama (60), Shatatri.nshatsama (36),
Shodashottari (116), Yogini (30). These are lunar based. Then there
are Rashi (sign) based systems: chara, sthira, kaala chakra and
kendraadi dashas etc
- Dashavatara: (Sanskirt)
- The ten avataras of Vishnu
- David, Moses (King David):
- Pseudonym for David Berg, the late founder of The
Family (Children of God).
- Dawn Bible Students:
- One of the original splinter groups formed after Joseph Rutherford
assumed leadership of the Watchtower Bible and
Tract Society.
- Dead Sea Scrolls:
- A collection of manuscripts containing 520 identifiable Jewish texts
from the third century BC through the first century AD discovered in
1947at Qumran in (then) Transjordan. Of these, 157 are biblical texts
constituting the oldest recovered manuscripts, with crucial import for
textual criticism and transmission. The remainder are a variety of
forms of literature, including Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts of
apocryphal writings formerly known largely in Greek and a large
collection of previously unknown texts. The identification of the site
and the connection with the Essenes is controversial.
- Death:
- The word "death" has
two meanings to Christians. First, it is used to describe the
cessation of life. Second, death refers to an eternal separation from
God as a result of sin This, they teach, is unnatural. When God
created Adam and Eve, death was not part of the created order. It was
not until they sinned that death entered the scene They further
teach that death will be destroyed when Jesus returns and the
believers receive their resurrected bodies.
- Decalogue:
- The Ten Commandments found in
Exodus 20. Deca means ten in Latin. Logue comes from
"logos" which means "word." They Ten
Commandments originally consisted of ten words which were interpreted.
- Dee, John: (1527-1608)
- English mathematician and astrologer, most noted for his studies in
necromancy and alchemy, which drew the attention of royalty. He was
born in London on July 13, 1527, educated at St John's College,
Cambridge, and made a foundation fellow of Trinity College in 1546.
After lecturing and studying at Louvain, Brussels and Paris between
1547 and 1550, he returned to England in 1551 and was granted a
pension by Edward VI. Dee met the future Queen
Elizabeth while she was being held under house arrest by Queen Mary.
The two developed a friendship that lasted for the rest of their
lives. As queen, Elizabeth gave Dee money...More importantly, she
protected him from those who accused him of withcraft.
"Dee's house in Mortlake, near London, was for many years a major
center of science in England. Dee salvaged many ancient
scientific tomes that had been scattered when Roman Catholic churches
and monasteries were ransacked during the Reformation, and his own
library of more than 4000 books may have been the largest of its kind
in Europe at the time. His preface to the English
Euclid, translated by Henry Billingsley (1570), pointed out the
practical applications of geometry and, together with several of his
other words, fostered the revival in England of the mathematical arts.
Dee spent the years 1583--89 in Poland and Bohemia with the astrologer
and alchemist Edward Kelly, and became warder of Manchester college in
1595. He died in poverty at Mortlake in December 1608.
- Deer
Park:
- The site in
northern India, near the city of Benaras, where Buddha is said to have
preached his first sermon.
- Deification:
- The elevation of a human to the rank of a god. It is most commonly
achieved after death.
- Deism:
- A Christian theological position that asserts that God is the
creator of the universe, but does not thereafter exert providential or
sovereign control over it. Developed first in England in the late
sixteenth century and in France in the eighteenth century, it was an
outgrowth of the thinking that propounded natural religion, which was
juxtaposed to traditional Christian support of the notion of revealed
religion (Compare to Atheism,
Agnosticism,
and Theism.)
- Deja Vu:
- The feeling of having already
experienced an event or place that is being encountered for the very
first time .
- Deluge:
- The Great Flood. This story is found in many religions and
myths around the world.
- Demon:
- A Greek word for a guiding spirit, or
guardian angel. Later corrupted to mean an malevolent spirit.
An evil spirit. fallen angel who assists
Satan in the opposition of God. Many primitive peoples believe
that demons are evil and can possess people.
- Demonic Possession: (see Possession)
- Demythologization:
- A method of interpretation practiced by Christian theologian Rudolf
Bultmann (1884-1976) to free the New Testament of first-century
mythical concepts and discern its essential message (Gk. kerygma).
As a theologian, Bultmann affirmed that Christianity is based on the
Christ of faith and not on the Jesus of history. As a German pastor,
he was concerned that the essential proclamation of that faith be
preached in ways that twentieth-century persons could appropriate.
Thus, demythologization entailed eliminating such prescientific
concepts as a three-story universe (sky, earth, and underworld) and
miraculous healings and replacing them with contemporary concepts.
- Deprogramming:
- A coercive attempt to dissuade an individual of religious or
ideological convictions believed to be harmful, through a concentrated
(usually two to three days) counseling procedure designed to produce a
sudden "snapping out." Deprogramming was developed in the
1970s by Ted Patrick and others as a way to rescue family members who
were perceived to have undergone negative personality change after
joining destructive religious groups.. Often presented as an antidote
for brainwashing or mind
control, some deprogrammers rationalized the unethical use of
force and coercion to rescue victims by illegally holding them against
their will (abduction or "snatching") in a process known as
"involuntary" deprogramming.
- Determinism: (See Fate)
- Deva: (Sanskrit)
- God, a god, a demi-god (see Daiva)
- Devadasi:(Sanskirt
"female servant of God")
- In India, a dwindling institution of
women dedicated to temple service who danced and sang in the daily
ritual, remained unmarried but sexually active, and embodied
auspiciousness. A nun, a female servant of God, especially, a temple
prostitute)
- Devi: (Sanskrit
- A goddess.
- Devil:
- (Greek
"diabolos," which means accuser. According to
Christian theology: the greatest of all the fallen angels who opposes
God and is completely evil. They say his name is Lucifer .
Various Christian theologies proclaim that he is: the accuser of the
brethren, the dragon, the tempter, the prince of demons, the ruler of
this world. Upon Jesus' return, the Devil will be vanquished to
the eternal lake of fire- depending on the eschatological position.
See Satan. Fallen Angel
- Devil's
Advocate:
- A once popular name for the person who
argued against, or investigated arguments against, a person's being
considered for canonization as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
This office is also called the "Promoter of the Faith."
- Dhammapada:
(Pali, "Dhamma Verses" or "footsteps of
Dhamma")
- Buddhist scripture containing 423
stanzas on a variety of topics; some are doctrinal, but many are
gnomic or moral verses. It is often considered, especially in the West
and in Theravada countries, one of the most representative Buddhist
texts, although it contains many stanzas found elsewhere in
non-Buddhist Indian literature and barely touches on some of the
central doctrines and beliefs of Buddhism. Its popularity in
antiquity, however, seems attested by the number of recensions that
have survived in different Buddhist languages, including Pali,
"Hybrid" Sanskrit, Gandhari, Prakrit, and classical
Sanskrit.
- Dhanayoga:
- In Vedic astrology, the 2nd, 5th, 9th
and 11th are wealth producing houses. Any inter-relation of their
rulers, by way of position aspect or conjunction, will produce money.
The more strongly they are inter-related, the more wealth is promised
in the birth chart, which the native will get eventually in the
related major or sub-periods
- Dharma:(Sansksrit)
- 1) religion, religious
doctrines, a code of life, way of good living, duty. 2)The
continuous refinement of consciousness. Each manifested state is the
potential state of the next evolutionary substance unfolding into more
permanent reality, until the consciousness is purified. By virtuous
practice of Dharma one may reach a condition which is referred to as
the dharma body. This body is not a material body in the normal sense
of a body, but is made of indestructible consciousness. It is not only
that form of consciousness which created all the primordial matter in
the Universe but creates consciousness itself, i.e. I AM or Self
consciousness
- Dharma, Santarna, (Sanskrit - the
eternal religion or eternal truth)
- Hinduism, it was founded in India, where it is still
practiced by 80% of the people. It is more than a religion in the
Western sense. It is also a way of life. Man is limited, but the
Supreme Being isn't. Because of our inability to comprehend the
infinite, we may look upon Hinduism as polytheistic, but, actually,
"Hinduism worships multiple forms of the one God."
- Diamond Sutra:
- A Mahayana Buddhist scriptural text that expounds the doctrine of
the Perfection of Wisdom. The Diamond Sutra was written in India in
Sanskrit, then carried into East Asia, where it was translated into
Chinese (ca. 400) and became one of the most revered summaries of the
teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. The text belongs to the body of
literature known as the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, and expresses the
central teaching of the Perfection of Wisdom in the paradoxical claim
that a bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) should resolve to lead all the
beings in the universe to nirvana (liberation), while understanding
that no beings at all are led to nirvana.
- Diana:
- Ancient Roman deity worshiped in wooded areas and in the city of
Rome; she was related to human fertility, childbirth, and children.
- Dianetics:
- Bestselling scripture of the Church of
Scientology
- Diaspora:
- 1) The
religion and culture of any group apart from its homeland. 2) Most
commonly refers to the Jewish dispersal in Gentile lands following
their eviction from Judea in the first century.
- Dichotomy:
- The teaching that a human
consists of two parts: body and soul. Sometimes the soul is also
referred to as spirit. (See Trichotomy)
- Dimension:
- According to popular belief, another realm or reality other than
this one. Many envision an infinite number of "dimensions'
coexisting side-by-side like envelopes in a tray. Travel between the
various "dimensions" is accomplished through super
scientific devices or spiritual or psychic power. In reality, a
dimension is the measurable quality of something. It is neither a
place nor location. Time is the fourth dimension. It is used to
measure motion. Dimensions greater than four measure qualities
that only physicists and mathematicians can understand.
- Diocese:
- The geographical area over which a
Christian bishop presides. In the Orthodox Church the term is
restricted to the area governed by a patriarch.
- Dionysus:
- A major Greek god, the son of Zeus and Semele. He was the patron of
wine and drama and generally of those experiences that transported one
beyond the normal human condition. He was worshiped publicly and in
private mystery religions concerned with the worshiper's fate after
death. In art, he was shown accompanied by wild, half-human satyrs and
ecstatic females (Maenads). He was conceived in a sacred
marriage in a stable. At his birth he was cradled in a winnowing fan
(which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit) At the time of his
marriage to Ariadne, he turned water into wine. He said
that he was God who had taken on the form of man.
- Discarnate:
- The state or condition of a living
creature who has died, without a body.
- Disciple:
- A pupil or follower of a
religion, a person, or a movement. Christians often confuse this term
with Apostle.
- Disfellowshipping:
- As practiced by the Mormons and many other groups, this is a level
of church discipline involving a probationary period of restricted
privileges, but retaining church membership. As practiced by th
Jehovah's Witnesses, it is an alternate term for
“excommunication,” being completely cut off from the church
organization; see shunning.
- Dispensationalism:
.
- That Christian doctrine which
says that God uses different means of administering His will and grace
which coincide with different periods of time. Scofield says there are
seven dispensations: of innocence, of conscience, of civil government,
of promise, of law, of grace, and of the kingdom.
Dispensationalists interpret the scriptures in light of these (or
other) dispensations. Compare to Ages
- Diti: (Sanskrit)
- The mother of the daityas demons
- Diva: (Sanskrit}
- A goddess, angel or spiritual being.
- Divali:
- Hindu philosophy of Enlightenment.
- Divakara: (Sanskrit)
- The Sun
- Divination:
- The act of foretelling the future or
gaining unknown information by using psychic skills or other methods
outside of the ordinary senses,palmistry, astrology, tarot and I Ching
are examples of divination.
- Divine Right:
- The claim to authority to rule as granted by God. Divine right is
most commonly asserted by monarchs.
- Divine Science:
- A New Thought church headquartered in
Denver. CO.
- Divinity:
- The nature or quality of being
God or God-like. Christian theologies are divided on just how
divine Jesus was and whether or not man is divine.
- Doctrine and Covenants:
- One of the scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints; the Reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepts a different version of
the work as scripture. Earlier editions were called The Book
of Commandments.
- Dojo: (Japanese,
"practice hall")
- Japanese hall or room used either for martial arts such as judo, or
for religious purposes, especially in Buddhism and also in a number of
new religions.
- Dome of the Rock:
- An octagonal domed shrine built by the Umayyad Muslim Caliph Abd al-Malik
in 691 on the sacred place in Jerusalem known as the Haram al-Sharif.
Enshrined beneath the dome is an outcropping of the bedrock atop the
Jewish Temple Mount. The shrine was built to symbolize the commonality
yet dominion of Islam over the two other monotheistic religions that
regard Jerusalem as a sacred city. For Muslims, the rock under the
dome marks the from which the Prophet Mohammed ascended into the Seven
Heavens (Qur'an 17:1).
- Don Juan:
- The Yaqui Indian shaman who taught Carlos Casteneda in his books.
- The Door:
- See Potter’s House.
- Dorje: (Tibetan,
"diamond," "thunderbolt")
- In Buddhism, Tibetan term for the Sanskrit vajra.
- Double Bind:
- A mental or psychological dilemma caused when a person receives from
a single leader or teacher conflicting messages or "truths"
resulting in no appropriate response or answer. See Cognitive
Dissonance.
- Dowsing:
- The skill of divining for underground
sources of water or other practical and spiritual matters by means of
a divining rod or variety of other means, such as the pendulum, or
even by deviceless techniques. Used to locate people,
objects, or substances, and to diagnose illnesses.(See
Dowsing)
- Doxology:
- Praise or glorification of a deity.
Among Christians, a short hymn of praise.
- Dracomancer:
- A practitioner of magick who uses
dragons in their workings.
- Drawing Down the Moon:
- A ritual performed by the
high-priest which invokes the Goddess into the high-priestess
- Dreadlocks:
- The physical expression of the Jamaican
Rastafarian pride in African hair. The hair is grown in its natural
form with long flowing locks, uncombed and untreated after washing.
Numbers 6:5 provides biblical justification.
- The Dreaming:
- An English expression adopted by Australian Aborigines to convey
ideas that, though related in their thought, are not usually denoted
by a single word in any of their languages. One sense is that of a
primordial epoch, the Dreaming or Dreamtime, when beings with
remarkable powers arose from the ground, descended from the sky, or
appeared from over the horizon. They gave the earth its shape by
creating physical features (often from parts of their own bodies),
fixed life in species form, established human culture, and gave
everything its name. These creative beings, who in their totality are
the ultimate explanation of all things, are themselves called
Dreamings (roughly equivalent to the anthropological term totems).
Their significance to the Aborigines is not merely historical but
personal and social, for each individual and group gains a distinctive
identity through its association with one or more Dreamings. In many
regions it is held that such beings reincarnate themselves as humans,
or that they left relics behind that, to this day, are sufficiently
potent to impregnate women. This sense of oneness, in which past and
present, spirit being and human being, are somehow fused, is also seen
in ceremonies in which the actors wear designs and make movements
symbolic or mimetic of what the Dreamings did in the Dreamtime. By
extension, from these two senses of Dreaming, the Aborigines form
other expressions, such as Dreaming-place (a site at which a Dreaming
was active and left something of itself) and Dreaming-track (an
imagined path along which a Dreaming traveled from place to place in
the primordial epoch). Contrary to what is sometimes suggested, the
term has no necessary connection with the verb to dream, even
though present-day revelations to humans by Dreamings normally occur
while the recipient is in a dream or trance state. See Astral
World.
- Dreams:
- Dreamtime: (See The
Dreaming)
- Dreshkana:
- A Varga. In Vedic astrology this is a
subdivision of one third of a sign.
- Druidism
- An ancient Celtic religion which has
undergone a modern revival.
- Druid: (Celtic, "true seer")
- A member of the priestly and intellectual elite of the Celts. Druids
were the religious and legal authorities in Gaul before its conquest
by the Romans (51 BC) and were celebrated for their esoteric
knowledge. The druid survived as a stock figure in medieval Irish
literature. A priestly caste of the ancient Celtic people of France
and the British Isles. They were the keepers of oral history and law,
and officiates of religious practices. Modern Druids are
various new religious traditions that attempt to incorporate the
insights of ancient Druidism, Celtic history and lore, and
romanticized notions of the ancient Druids formed in the eighteenth
century. In England today, there are the Order of Bards, Ovates and
Druids, and the Ancient Order of Druids, among others. While
there is no scholarly connection between the Druids and Stonehenge,
the Ancient Order of Druids used Stonehenge for their rituals until
instances of vandalism by the curious closed the ancient site. In the
United States, the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) began in
1963 as a satirical protest against required attendance at chapel at
Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The RDNA developed rituals
and lore from Celtic history, poetry, and anthropology, and the
movement continued and became more serious, even after the chapel
attendance requirement was dropped. The RDNA considered Druidism a
philosophy of life, not a religion. In 1966 the New Reformed Druids of
North America (NRDNA) reformed Druidism as a Neo-Pagan religion. A few
chapters of both groups still exist. Other current American Druidic
groups include Ar nDraiocht Fein ("Our Own Druidism"),
founded by Isaac Bonewits in 1983. Currently the largest American
revivalist Druid organization, it sees itself as a Neo-Pagan religion
based on the beliefs and practices of the ancient Indo-Europeans but
adapted to modern needs and sensibilities, such as the preservation of
the earth and excellence in arts and scholarship.
- Druze/Druse:
- Adherents of a heterodox Ismaili Shiite sect, called Duruz after
Muhammad al-Darazi (d. ca. 1919), an Ismaili missionary. Founded in
1017 in Egypt, the Druze community was oppressed by the larger group
of Ismaili Shiites, the Muslim Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt and
North Africa. The Druze sought refuge in the mountains of
Syria-Lebanon, where they since have played a historic role.
Professed monotheists, the Druze hold the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim (r.
996-1021) to be the sole incarnation of divinity, appearing in all
ages. Al-Hakim is believed by the Druze to have created five cosmic
principles or ranks: the Intellect, Universal Soul, Word, Preceder,
and Follower, which were incarnated in five Druze missionaries. Baha
al-Din al-Muqtana (the Follower), who occupies the lowest rank in this
cosmic hierarchy, was the author of most of the Druze scriptures,
known as the Epistles of Wisdom. Faced with serious problems of
schism led by ambitious missionaries, in 1333 Baha al-Din closed the
door of initiation. The Druze have since remained a closed community.
Below the five incarnate principles are the fully initiated leaders
and then the larger community of ordinary Druze believers. In
opposition to these are evil principles representing the darker side
of the cosmic order. At death, human souls are immediately reborn in
human form. At the end of time al-Hakim, along with one of the
incarnate principles (Hamza, who is in occultation), will return to
usher in the end of this age and a new messianic era.
- Dual Covenant:
- The belief that the New Testament applies to Gentiles only. The
Jewish people must relate to God through the earlier Old Testament or
Abrahamic covenant. A similar doctrine called the Plural Covenant
theory emphasizes other covenants in addition to these two major
systems.
- Dualism:
- An understanding of reality as existing in two opposite extremes.
Metaphysical dualism sees the universe as existing in two contrary
(and sometimes conflicting) realities—mind and matter, or spirit and
physical, or yin and yang. Ethical dualism posits a
conflict between universal good and an equal and opposite force of
universal evil (e.g., the belief that God and Satan are equal and
opposite beings).
- Dynamic Monarchianism:
- A late second-century doctrine denying the Trinity, put forth by
Theodotue of Byzantium and later adoped in modified forms by Paul of
Samosata, Noetus and Prazeas.
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