The Magician's Dictionary

YAMA

Lord of the Underworld, our first father and the angel of our death. Yama is the Hindu equivalent of Pluto, the guardian of Hell. But along with the dreaded Yama is the even more intimidating Yamataka, Yama's destroyer who is both a bodhisattva and an aspect of Shiva. He is black, has many heads, eyes, legs and arms bearing mystic implements and human skulls. He is engaged in intercourse with a female bodhisattva, a concubine/succubus. Another of his names is Varja-Bhairava ("Terrible Lightning") and he is the protective God of the Tibetan temple of Gelugpa.

YAMATU

The meaning of this, the 26th kala, is abstract and unclear.

YANTRA

A linear design or mandala depicting the vectors, power-zones or sound-waves (mantram) of the formula of a spirit, force or deity. Cinematic yantras have recently begun to enjoy some vogue. These are videos repeating the same short movement or action in an endless loop. Since they are movements, we might call them tantras, but cinema is actually a form of writing or symbolic representation, whereas tantra involves the actual, physical movement of the yogi in the flesh. Perhaps cinematic yantra/tantras should have a name of their own: tanayantra ("daughter mode").

YEAR OF THE ELEPHANT

571 A.D.; the year of Mohammed's birth.

YESOD

RAW: "The first astral plane." This is the 9th power chakra of the Tree of Life and the link between the Moon and the sublunary worlds. It is called the "Foundation." (Grant also calls it the "Fundament," because it acts as an excreter.) Yesod is the lunar illumination of the Ophidian Current and the abode of Set. It is the most secret depth of the personality.

YEVO

Extreme power word. A variation, no doubt, of "Jehovah." Depending on its peculiar ritual pronunciation, its vibration could kill a person from a great distance.

YEZIDI

Probably descendants of the ancient fire-magicians, though the Persians claim that ancient Persian Yezidis were led to Persia from Basrah by their Prophet, Iezed. They are now regarded as Devil-worshipers or Shaitan-worshipers, centered in the mountains and deserts of Kurdistan, Armenia, Persia, Turkestan, Syria, Mesopotamia and environs. For this reason, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran recently put thousands of Yezidi to death -- perhaps all of them. Grant feels their cult goes back to Sumeria, but connects the word to Yesod. It is also the religion that Crowley took for his own cult of Shaitan-Aiwass, after ridding it of latterday Xtian influences.

Gurdjieff describes the Yezidis as a simple, superstitious people, easily hypnotized, but he began his search amongst them for the fabled "Sarmoung" monastery (branches of which are scattered between Mesopotamia and the Northern Himalayas, which it is believed he eventually found and where he received his most important training).

Originally they were said to summon the lowers demons and elementals, fully acknowledging the evil of the King of the "Black Powers," who opposes Allah. But their rationale is that one day Allah and Shaitan will reconcile their differences and those who have shown disrespect for Shaitan will then suffer for it, bringing both God and Devil after them. Like the Eskimos the Yezidis believed, as HPB quotes, "Keep friends with the demons; give them your property, your blood, your service, and you need not care about God - he will not harm you!" (God is perfect, therefore not a threat, but demons are imperfect, and so, unpredictable).

Yezidis are not related to the rest of mankind. There is no evil. The devil has repented and returned to his place in Heaven. Now the universe is ruled by a septenary consisting of Yazid (worshipped as a peacock) and six helpers. The Creator, as in Gnosticism, has nothing further to do with the world.

Actually, modern Yezidism is a mixture of unorthodox Islam and Xtianity. The real name of the God of the ancient Yezidis is unknown as they were forbidden to utter it. In Iran of recent times they have undoubtedly all been put to the sword.

YOD

This is one of the power letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Being the first letter of the tetragrammaton (YHVH), it is the number of the creative fire. Out of this primeval iota, all further letters evolve, thus it parallels that out of which the entire plenum derives. that is, it is the phallus created by God to produce light. Its value is ten, but its tarot number is 9, The Hermit, which reminds us that, after all, there is only one being and that being can only be oneself, alone in the universe, surrounded by the mirrors of the illusion of many. Yods are sent forth out of Yahveh, accompanying all descents and ascents of spirit into and out of matter. Each yod is itself the divine spark that originates each separate thing in the world. Within the material world there are also secondary yods, as each thing produces energy flow from itself.

Yod, apart from being the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents yadaim, or "hands," and is therefore sometimes given as the totality of the ten numbers or sephiroth.

YOG SOTHOTH

In the mythos of The Necronomicon, this is the most repellant of all the semi-entities which haunt the infamous 11th Pathway. Grant describes his color as a gangrenous shade of green. He has no upper skull at all, merely a bloated and foetid mess that is his maggot-festering, naked brain. A madly gazing, giant's "Cyclops" eye beringed by octopoidal palpi stares out of a face slimy and writhing with entrails over shark teeth below. His gross, warty body rises tyrannosaurus-like out of the primordial muck.

His nauseating undulation suggesting a monotonous and blasphemous coitus, he is in fact the "Aeon" or "Yuga," i.e., the monstrous, forbidden union of Set and Thoth. Further sexual intercourse between Choronzon and Set forms a doorway between our world and the Hell of the Demons. H. P. Lovecraft refers to him as "the noxious Yog-Sothoth who froths as primal slime in nuclear chaos beyond the nethermost outposts of space and time!" The "soul-eater," Yog-Sut-Thoth, Kenneth Grant believes, is the Ibis of the Yesodic lunar Abyss, the sentinel of the between-worlds Doorway, the very portal itself, in fact, and the link between the Firmaments, above and below. Yog-Sut-Thoth (333) and Choronzon (333), moreover, are summoned by the same voice, for they are reciprocal aspects of one another. Locked together, in sodomy, the two form The Beast, 666. The "Beast" is really an historical occurrence, rather than a mere entity. It is a counter-swirl in the Ether, following in the wake of positive creation, that allows atavistic manifestations by default.

YOGA

(Sanskrit for "union," related to our "yoke.") Conquering the self is known as Yoga, the esoteric Eastern teaching of human perfection that lies behind all occult wisdom. It is a thread that binds the individual to the "Supreme Reality" (or, as Watts would say, "The Supreme Identity"). In the Upanishads is written:

"By Vayu, the Inner Controller, as by a thread, O Gautama, are this world, the other world, and all beings held together.

"Quite so... Now describe the Inner Controller.

"He who inhabits the earth, yet is within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, and who controls the earth from within -- he is your Self, the Inner Controller, The Immortal."

A teacher of Yoga is called a guru and a student is called a chela, a practitioner of Yoga is called a Yogi or Yogin. Yoga reveals the beginning yogi's weaknesses and also what transcendent strengths are available to him. There are 12 essential types of Yoga, here presented in arbitrary order:

Hatha-Yoga (The Breath: physical vitality). Bhakti-Yoga (Loving: The way of Devotion of Religion). Shakti-Yoga (Energy: The way of nature). Mantra-Yoga (Sound: Power through sound vibrations). Laya-Yoga (The Will: Mental powers). Yantra-Yoga (Formation: Powers through the use of geometric forms). Dhyana-Yoga (Thinking: Way of thought). Raja-Yoga (Methodology: Power to discriminate and develop consciousness). Jnana-Yoga (Knowledge: Intellectual power). Kundalini-Yoga (Kundalini energy: Development of psychic nerve energy). Samadhi-Yoga (The Self: The way of ecstasy). Karma-Yoga (Action: The way of right action). To these we must also add the esoteric Martya Yoga (willed death).

YUGGOTH

Yug is an age or aeon, from Sanskrit Yuga. Yuggoth is a Hebrew plural form, making little sense. One of Grant's terms. According to the Necronomicon, it refers to the planet Pluto. It is really one of the Great Old Ones. Grant connects it to the qabalistic Kether, which is a liberty of his. Pluto may perhaps be assigned to Kether, but Yuggoth as Kether is highly questionable.