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New Age Dictionary N
- Nabhipedasana: (Sanskrit)
- The upward ankle-twist posture in yoga
- Nada: (Sanskrit)
- The Universal Sound. Vibration
- Nadabrahma: (Sanskrit)
- The perfect, blissful tone.
- Nadi: (Sanskrit)
- A channel within the astral body
- Nadishodhana: (Sanskrit)
- The purification of the nadis
- Naga: (Sanskrit)
- Ancient hooded serpent, associated with Kundalini and the
chakras.
- Nahash: (Hebrew - serpent)
- In Hebrew this word is associated with magic and
enchantment. It is related to and pronounced almost
the same as the Sanskrit word naga. Most authorities agree
that, as it is used in the first of Genesis, this word
cannot mean simply a snake. It is the ego which indeed winds
about the heart of a man and envelops it in its coils,
having nothing to do with a serpent except as a metaphor.
In various usages one may read it as ego or as kundalini or
as something not quite one nor the other.
- Nakshatra:
- In Vedic astrology, a division of the Zodiac into 27
parts. There were originally 28 parts but one seems to have
been dropped. Each Division is ruled by a planet and is
further divided into Padas or quarters. The nakshatra
contains 9 navaa.nshas and forms the base position for lunar
Dasha systems
- Namaste: (Sanskrit) can be
translated as obeisance to you.
- Among many Hindus, the greeting of choice. The two hands
pressed together and held near the heart with the head
gently bowed as one says,
"Namaste". The hands held in union signify the
oneness of an apparently dual cosmos, the bringing together
of spirit and matter, or the self meeting the Self.
- Nataraja:
- Lord of the dancers, a name of Shiva
- Natarajasana: (Sanskrit)
- The Lord of the Dance posture in yoga
- Nation of Islam:
- A sect of Islam
originating in America composed of black Americans.
Followers, sometimes called Black Muslims, believe that
Allah (God) appeared in 1930 to the last great prophet
Elijah Muhammad, in the person of Wallace D. Fard. Elijah
Muhammad borrowed many beliefs from traditional Islam but
introduced important differences. Most notable was the focus
on black oppression and equating Satan and evil with the
white race. Malcolm X became a notable leader of the
movement in the 1960s and the focus on black supremacy and
militancy escalated. Malcolm X later converted to
traditional Islam and rejected radical black supremacy and
was subsequently murdered. The current leader of the Nation
is Islam is Louis Farrakhan.
- National Spiritualist Association of Churches:
- A national spiritualist organization headquartered at
Cassadaga, FL:
- Native American Spirituality:
- The religious beliefs, practices, and rituals
associated with Native Americans. Early Native
American beliefs, though diverse, often shared common
religious ideas. Many believed in a �Great
Spirit,� that nature in all of its forms possesses
spirits, and that all life is interconnected. Seasons
and moons often were viewed as marking times of evocation
for spirits and prosperity. Some New
Age believers promote revival of Native American
spirituality, seeing obvious parallels with their own views.
- Natural Law Party:
- A political party started by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the
father of Transcendental
Meditation (TM).
- Nature Spirits:
- Various types of beings that are said to be the
"soul" of natural forms. Belief
in the existence of nature spirits is common to all cultures
throughout history. They are usually attached to a specific
place, such as a tree, river, plant or mountain. They come
in a variety of shapes and temperaments. Some are described
as human in form, others are like animals or are half-human,
half animal; some are helpful, others deceitful or
malevolent. They are normally invisible to humans, except to
those with the gift of clairvoyance.
Elementals are a sub-class of nature spirits that are a part
of the life force of all things in nature. They are ruled by
archangels
and are generally regarded as benevolent. The Neoplatonic Greeks
categorized elementals according to the four elements: Earth
elementals are gnomes;
air elementals are sylphs; Water elementals are undines; and
Fire elementals are salamanders. In the Middle Ages interest
in these main groups was revived and alchemists
and magicians
sought to control and manipulate the forces of nature and
the universe. Other elementals
include elves,
who live in the woods, and household spirits such as
brownies, goblins and bogies. Fairies
are also sometimes included in this category.
- Naturopathy:
- A healing system
acknowledging the body's natural healing power. Fosters
health through education and the use of natural substances
such as herbs, foods, air and sunshine
- Navasana: (Sanskrit)
- The boat posture in yoga
- Neanderthal:
- A species of Palaeolithic man
inhabiting Europe during the
Mousterian period. It was named for the Neander Valley in
Germany, near D�sseldorf, where in 1856 one of
the earliest skulls was found. They occupied parts of Europe
and the Middle East from 100,000 years ago until about
35,000 to 40,000 years ago, when they disappeared from the
fossil record. The most significant feature of Neanderthal
anatomy, as with all others hominids,
is the skull. Specimens vary, but typical features include a
wide, vaulted cranium, heavy 'beetle brow' ridges above the
eyes, a big jaw, and large teeth. Neanderthals may
have looked faintly apelike, but their brain capacity was as
large as, and in some cases larger than, that of modern
human beings. As a whole, Neanderthals seem to have been
tough and stocky individuals.Many believe that the
Neanderthal is the ancenter of Sasquatch.
- Near-death experience (NDE):
- Any paranormal or supernatural experience had when a
person is near death, including experiences when a person
thinks he or she has died and returned from death. Reports
of NDEs have become numerous in recent decades due to
advances in medical technology that make it possible to
revive people from comas and other critical conditions. Many
patients report having out-of-body
experiences (OBEs) while they were unconscious or
comatose.
- Necromancy:(from Greek words meaning
�dead' and 'divination'),
- A form of divination by communication with the dead, one
of the "black arts". The classic
case of necromancy is the witch
of Endor, described in the Bible (1 Samuel 28), who
summoned the spirit of Samuel in the presence of Saul.
Necromancy can be divided into two main branches:
divination by means of ghosts,
and divination from corpses, both of which represent related
forms of forbidden knowledge. The second method led to the
disinterment of corpses and rifling of graves for the grisly
charms which magicians and witches considered necessary for
the effective performance of the magical
arts. To evoke the dead the
magician needed to obtain the help of powerful spirits, both
for his own protection and to compel the corpse or ghost to
submit to his will. A spell from ancient Greece
calls upon the powers of the mighty Kore, Persephone,
Ereshkigal, Adonis, Hermes
and Thoth,
to bind the dead. According to a ritual described by Seneca,
the Roman dramatist, the summoning of the dead involved not
only a burnt sacrifice but a blood-drenched altar.
- Necronomicon: {Latin - literally: :Book of Dead
Names"')
- The Necronomicon of Alhazred is not,
as popularly believed, a grimoire,
or sorcerer's
spell-book; it was conceived as a history, and hence "a
book of things now dead and gone", but the author had a
tendency to garner and stitch together fact, rumor,
speculation, and complete balderdash, and the result is a
vast and almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense. In
times past the book has been referred to guardedly as Al
Azif, or The
Book of the Mad Arab. It was written in Damascus in
730 AD by Abdul Alhazred, in seven volumes, and runs to over
900 pages in the Latin edition. The book is best known for
its antediluvian speculations. Alhazred appears to have had
access to many sources now lost, and events which are only
hinted at in the Book of Genesis or the apocryphal Book of
Enoch, or disguised as mythology in other sources, are
explored in great detail. His speculations are
remarkably modern, and this may account for his current
popularity: he believed that many species besides the human
race had inhabited the Earth, and that much knowledge was
passed to mankind in encounters with being from other
"spheres". He shared with some neo-platonists the
belief that stars are like our sun, and have their own
unseen planets with their own life-forms, but elaborated
this belief with a good deal of metaphysical speculation in
which these beings were part of a cosmic hierarchy of
spiritual evolution. He was also convinced that he had
contacted these "Old Ones" using magical
invocations, and warned of terrible powers waiting to return
to re-claim the Earth � he interpreted this belief in
the light of the Apocalypse of St. John, but reversed the
ending so that the Beast triumphs after a great war in which
the earth is laid waste. The famous H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon
is a work of fiction, undoubtedly based on the Necronomicon
of Alhazred, which is believed Lovecraft never read, but
learned of its existence and content through his wife, Sonia
Greene, which had been one of Aleister Crowley's
disciples, and possibly his lover. There is no question that
Crowley read John Dee's
translation of the Necromonicon in the Ashmolean; too
many passages in Crowley's The
Book of the Law read like a transcription of
passages in that translation. He was surprisingly reticent
about his real sources - there is a strong suspicion that 777,
which Crowley claimed to have written, was largely
plagiarized from Allan Bennet's notes.
- Neo-Orthodox Christianity:
- Development associated with the strong reaction of Swiss
theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner against the
barrenness of liberal
Christianity. They felt that Scripture, although a
flawed, fallible, human product, could still be used by God
to accomplish His purposes. Thus the Bible becomes
inspired in its proclamation when the Holy Spirit quickens
faith and obedience in its hearers. .
- Neo-Paganism:
- The modern revival of paganism,
emphasizing witchcraft (see Wicca), goddess
worship, and nature worship.
- : (
from Nestorius),
Patriarch
of Constantinople).
- The
Christian doctrine that Jesus was two distinct persons, one
human and one divine, closely and inseparably united. God
begot Jesus as God, but Mary bore him as a man. Its
name comes from its leading proponent, Nestorius, Patriarch
of Constantinople. Nestorianism was rejected as a
heresy by the Council
of Chalcedon in 451
A.D., which held that Christ consisted of only one person
with two natures, one human and one divine. Nestorian
churches exist today within Eastern Orthodox Cathollic
Church..
- Nettles, Bonnie Lou:
- See Heaven�s
Gate.
- Networking
- An informal, decentralized
organization created by like-minded individuals who are
interested in address-ing specific problems and offering
possible solutions. All of this takes place outside of
conventional institutions.
- Neuro-Linguistic
Programming (NLP)
- A system developed by
Richard Bandler and Dr. John Grinder
toCalled �software for the brain,� it
is supposed to be faster and more powerful than traditional
clinical counseling and can work without the
subject�s conscious knowledge
- Neuromuscular
Therapy:
- A form of deep massage using
pressure to certain trigger points on the body to release
emotions and relieve pain by breaking the
stress-tension-pain cycle.
- New
Age:
- A term coined by Alice Bailey
in the first part of the 20th Century to decribe the age to
follow the Piscean - The Age of Aquarius, beginning
between Jan 1, 1981 and May 5 2012. Also, the
philosophical and/or religious systems arising form or
believing in the coming of a new age.
- New
Age Community Church:
- A New Age church founded by Rev. Dr. John Rodgers in 1971.
with three congregations, West Valley, Blessed Circle and
the mother church. Publishers of the Omega Directory.
Founders of the New Age Seminary Program and Psychic
Massage.
- New Age Medicine:
- See Holistic
Health
- New Age Movement
- A loose organization of
people, many of them "Yuppies," who espouse a
variety of beliefs, primarily that the world has entered the
Aquarian Age. As a rule, they reject Judeo-Christian
orthodoxy. Among them may be found environmentalists,
ESP cultists, spiritists, Pagans, and others using magical
rites. (See New
Age)
- New Age Music:
- Music composed to facilitate altered
states of consciousness and meditation.
Stephen Halpern's Spectrum Suite, is the finest
example of this genre. Also, a light jazz,
instrumental music category.
- Newbrough, John:
- See OAHSPE.
- New Church:
- See Swedenborg
Foundation
- New Life Foundation:
- Organization founded by Vernon Howard to promote his
teachings. Located in Pine AZ
- New Thought:
- One of the branches of the mind
sciences; though related to Christian
Science, New Thought usually maintains the reality of
matter and is more liberal and pluralistic in its views.
Teaches that the Christ
is only a principle that was embodied in Jesus and other
religious figures
- New World Order:
- The belief that: as the new Age of Aquarius unfolds, a new
order of things will come into being.. This will be a utopia
in which there is world government, and end to wars,
disease, hunger, pollution, and poverty. Gender, racial,
religious and other forms of discrimination will cease.
People's allegiance to their tribe or nation will be
replaced by a concern for the entire world and its people.
Probably derived from the writings of Alice A. Bailey. Said
by some Christians to be an anti-Christ world dictatorship.
- New World Translation:
- Official Bible translation published by the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society. The beauty of the King James
Version has been sacrificed for accuracy's sake.
- Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA):
- Former name of Soka
Gakkai International (SGI).
- Nirvana:
- Hindu
state of enlightenment or liberation
from earthly things; bliss, freedom of the
personal soul from the physical world..
- NLP: (See Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
- Nostrodamus, Michel: (1503-1566)
- French physician and astrologer whose predictions of the
future have fascinated people for centuries.
Nostradamus acquired fame as a doctor by
treating victims of the plague, but he eventually turned
more to astrology
and metaphysics. In 1555 he completed the Centuries,
a book of more than 900 predictions about the fate of
France, the world, and celebrated persons of his time. The
title of the book refers to the fact that the contents are
arranged in sections of 100 verses each. An expanded version
was published in 1558. His prophecies
are written as four-lined rhymed verses (quatrains) in
vague, often cryptic language. The fact that they are
written in a French dialect that has not been spoken for 400
years complicates interpretation of his predictions.
Some interpreters say the verses can be applied to anything,
or nothing, whereas others claim that various verses
foretold the Great Fire of London in 1666, the deaths of
several monarchs, details of the French Revolution, the rise
of Napoleon and Hitler and World War II. Because
Nostradamus included very few dates in his prophecies and
because, additionally, he did not organize them into a
chronological order, the verses have been constantly
reinterpreted since their publication. The Centuries remains
a classic of the occult literature and hundreds of studies
of it have been published.
- Numerology:
- The divination art of numbers
based upon qualitative values given to letters of the
alphabet which are interpreted in shaping one's destiny as
well as offering guidance in daily living.Often
associated with the Kabbalah,