NABIA.—Seership, soothsaying. This oldest and most respected of mystic phenomena, is the name given to prophecy in the _Bible_, and is correctly included among the spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nabia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed _Epoptai_, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as _Nebim_, “the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.” The kabalist distinguishes between the _seer_ and the _magician_; one is passive, the other active; _Nebirah_, is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; _Nebi-poel_, he who possesses _magic powers_. We notice that Elijah and Apollonius resorted to the same means to isolate themselves from the disturbing influences of the outer world, viz.: wrapping their heads entirely in a woolen mantle: from its being an electric non-conductor we must suppose. OCCULTIST.—One who studies the various branches of occult science. The term is used by the French kabalists (See Eliphas Levi’s works). Occultism embraces the whole range of psychological, physiological, cosmical, physical, and spiritual phenomena. From the word _occult_ hidden or secret; applying therefore to the study of the _Kabala_, astrology, alchemy, and all arcane sciences. PAGAN GODS.—This term gods is erroneously understood by most of the {xxxviii} reading public, to mean idols. The idea attached to them is _not_ that of something objective or anthropomorphical. With the exception of occasions when “gods” mean either divine planetary entities (angels), or disembodied spirits of pure men, the term simply conveys to the mind of the mystic—whether Hindu Hotar, Mazdean Mage, Egyptian hierophant, or disciple of the Greek philosophers—the idea of a visible or cognized manifestation of an invisible potency of nature. And such occult potencies are invoked under the appellation of various gods, who, for the time being, are personating these powers. Thus every one of the numberless deities of the Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Pantheons, are simply Powers of the “Unseen Universe.” When the officiating Brahman invokes Aditya—who, in her cosmic character, is the goddess-sun—he simply _commands_ that potency (personified in some god), which, as he asserts, “resides in the Mantra, as the sacred _Vâch_.” These god-powers are allegorically regarded as the divine _Hotars_ of the Supreme One; while the priest (Brahman) is the human Hotar who officiates on earth, and representing that particular Power becomes, ambassador-like, invested with the very potency which he personates.