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62 Cards in this Set
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- Back
Animism |
attribution of a discrete indwelling spirit to every material form of reality such as plants, stones, and to natural phenomena like storms |
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Aversive Magic |
the use of extraordinary materials , rites, and spells to ward off or destroy agents deemed harmful |
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Contagious Magic |
a form of sympathetic magic based on the view that things once conjoined continue to influence each other when separated |
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Cosmogony |
a theory or myth regarding the origin of the universe, the earth, and living beings |
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Divination |
the employment of magical practices (lottery, aurgury, special psychic powers, etc.) for the purpose of gaining knowledge of future events or events unknowable by ordinary investigation |
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Fetishism |
veneration and use of natural or prepared material objects (fetishes) imbued with special potency (mana) for purposes of averting evil effects or acquiring values |
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Mana |
an invisible potency believed to inhabit extraordinary and awesome person, object or phenomena |
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Necromancy |
communication with the dead for purposes of divination or magically influencing the course or natural events |
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Productive Magic |
the use of extraordinary materials, rites, or spells to gain desired products, values or effects |
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Rites of Intensification |
prescribed forms of ceremony, worship, or veneration used for purposes of strengthening communal values or increasing spiritual potency |
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Rites of Passage |
prescribed forms of ceremony used to mark and celebrate significant events in the life stages of an individual; birth, puberty, marriage, ordination to a special role, death, and so on. |
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Shamanism |
a mode of dealing with the spirit world through the agency of an individual set apart as spirit possessed and specially equipped to deal with superhuman forces (The term shaman is generically applied to healers, exorcists, sorcerers, magicians, fetish priests, and the like) |
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Sympathetic Magic |
the effort to control events, animals or persons by extraordinary means that are imitative or analogical in form (A doll or effigy, for example, may be stabbed or burned as a means of casting a spell upon a living being, or red ochre powder used to restore the glow of life to a pallid body) |
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Taboo |
a strict prohibition applied to a person, a thing, or an action (The taboo is mandated by a superhuman sacred law, and the exclusion from use, approach, or mention are tacitly accepted beyond rational explanation or challenge.) |
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Totemism |
the recognition of a special relationship between a human group or an individual and a class or species of animals, plants, or inanimate objects (The ritual relationship is usually seen as mandated by superhuman forces for the mutual benefit of the humans and the totemic objects.) |
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Astrology |
a method of predicting the course of individual lives and world events by relating them to the movements and positions of stars and planes |
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Chthonian |
forces, powers, or deities dwelling in or under the earth |
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Moira |
what is allotted , fate in Greek thought |
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Numen |
divine potency emanating from a deity, person, or thing; sometimes the divine part of a deified person |
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Oracle |
a divine or an especially authoritative revelation (or the person who delivers it) often an ambiguous or enigmatic utterance spoken through a medium in a trance state |
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Pantheon |
a set of deities, usually all of the divine beings venerated in a culture or region |
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Theogony |
an account of the origin of the gods |
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Wyrd |
a Teutonic term for "what happens," chance, fate, or destiny, sometimes generically personified, sometimes conceived as operating through three personifications called Norns |
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Zigguarat |
a type of pyramidal structure erected by ancient Mesopotamians, a human-made mountain with stepped-back terracing encased in brick and topped by shrine |
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Agni |
the sacred fire, as Agni, the ritual priest god of fire and light |
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Aryans |
(Indo-Europeans) semi-nomadic peoples who migrated from eastern Europe and central Asia westward to become the ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, Celts, and Teutons, and eastward to Persia and India (ca. 1500 BCE); their Sanskrit culture infuses the dominant tradition in India today |
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Asvamedha |
the ancient Aryan horse sacrafice |
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Atharva-Veda |
Brahamic ritual poetry dedicated to meeting a practical needs; healing illnesses , casting spells to win a lover, averting bad luck, or expiating sins |
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Atman |
the essence of consciousness, the soul; ultimately the subjective component of brahman |
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Brahma |
the Creator,: although less popular than Shiva and Vishnu, he is a member of the supreme triad with them and a sharer of the title Ishvara ("Lord") |
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Brahman |
in Vedic literature a manalike magical potency especially associated with sacred utterances (mantras) and prayer, in later philosophical works, Brahman is the ultimate ground of all forms and phenomena, the World Soul |
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Brahmanas |
commentaries on the Vedas stress the potency of Brahmanic ritual for control over gods, nature, and humankind |
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Brahman-Atman |
a compound term indicate the essential identity of individual consciousness with eternal Brahman, the universal World Soul |
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Brahmin |
a member of the Brahmana or priestly class of castes, the highest group in the varna ordering of society |
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Brihaspati |
a ritual deity, the power of prayer personified |
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Dasas |
dark-skinned indigenous inhabitants of northwest India subdued by invading Aryans; the Dasas were probably survivors from the Indus Valley culture and kindred peoples of the Punjab |
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Dravidians |
a major racial and linguistic family of dark-skinned non-Aryan peoples most numerous in south India; whether they are descendants of the Indus Valley culture is uncertain |
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Henotheism |
flattering ritual attribution of supreme position and a vast array of powers to one of the many gods, temporarily ignoring, but not denying , the existence of the others |
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Indra |
god of storms and monsoon, slayer of Vritra in mystic cosmogony in the Rig-Veda |
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Jiva |
the principle of vitality, the empirical self, or the embodied atman |
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Kalpa |
a world age or aeon, a unit in the cycle of periodic dissolutions and reconstitutions of all things |
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Karma |
"deeds," "works," the principle of inexorable cause and effect |
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Kshatriya |
the warrior-chieftain class of castes, the second-ranking group in varna |
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Maya |
the illusion-creating power of Brahman, unlike the delusional avidya (ignorance) of mortals, this is the inventive sport of the cosmic Mind |
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Moska |
release, liberation from the cycle of samsara |
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Monism |
the metaphysical view that ultimate reality is made up of only one substance diversity is only apparent and can be traced to one substrate |
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Prakriti |
the eternal self-subsisting material world, Nature |
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Purusha |
as Purusha, the original cosmic Person; in later philosophies, pure consciousness, the non-material world, Nature |
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Rig veda |
a collection of over one thousand Sanskrit hymns, the liturgical handbook of early Aryan hotar priests, the older portion of Brahmanic "revealed" sacred literature |
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Rudra |
mountain god of the north wind, sometimes destroyer, sometimes healer, later worshiped under the name Shiva, "auspicious" |
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Samasara |
sequence of change, impermanence, the cycle of rebirth-redeath that afflicts every living being until release (Moksha) |
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Shruti |
"that which is heard," most sacred core of Brahamanic literature |
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Shudra |
worker class of castes, fourth and lowest ranking in the varna social order |
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Smriti |
"that which is remembered," secondary level of sacred writings that derive from revelation but are composed by human authors |
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Soma |
sacred drink; as Soma, the ritual priest-god of libations |
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Tapas |
austerity-generated "heat"; subjectively, each impulse mastered stokes the inner fire of psychic power, universally, containment generates warmth incubating the cosmic germ/egg |
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Upanishads |
"sitting near a teacher," commentary treatises expanding on the philosophical meaning found in the Vedas |
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Vaisya |
the merchant, artisan, and small landholder class of castes, third in the Varna order |
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Varna |
classes of castes |
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Varuna |
Vedic deity of the night sky, keeper of the natural and moral order |
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Veda |
ancient Brahmanic ritual poems and hyms |
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Vedanta |
"the end of the Vedas," commentary treatises (Upanishads) on the Vedas in later times, one of the six recognized systems of Hindu philosophy |