Nazarene Codex The Scriptures of the Nazarenes and of the Nabotheans also. According to sundry Church Fathers, Jerome and Epiphanius especially, they were heretical teachings, but are in fact one of the numerous Gnostic readings of cosmogony and theogony, which produced a distinct sect.

Necromancy The raising of the images of the dead, considered in antiquity and by modern occultists as a practice of Black Magic. Iamblichus, Porphyry, and other theurgists deprecated the practice no less than Moses, who condemned the "witches" of his day to death, the said witches being often only mediums, e.g., the case of the Witch of Endor and Samuel.

Neo-Platonists A school of philosophy which arose between the second and third century of our era, and was founded by Ammonius Saccas, of Alexandria. The same as the Philaletheians, and the Analogeticists; they were also called Theurgists and by various other names. They were the Theosophists of the early centuries. Neo-Platonism is Platonic philosophy plus ecstasy, divine R®ja-Yoga.

Nephesh (Heb.) Breath of Life, Anima, Mens Vitae, appetites. The term is used very loosely in the Bible. It generally means Prana, "life"; in the Cabala it is the animal passions and the animal soul. Therefore, as maintained in theosophical teachings, Nephesh is the Prana-Kama Principle, or the vital animal soul in man.

Nirmanakaya (Sans.) Something entirely different in esoteric philosophy from the popular meaning attached to it, and from the fancies of the Orientalists. Some call the Nirmanakaya body "Nirvana with remains" (Schlagintweit), on the supposition, probably, that it is a kind of Nirvanic condition during which consciousness and form are retained. Others say that it is one of the Trikaya (three bodies) with "the power of assuming any form of appearance in order to propagate Buddhism." Again, that "it is the incarnate Avatara of a deity." Occultism, on the other hand, says that Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a transformed "body," is a state. The form is that of the Adept or Yogi who enters, or chooses, that postmortem condition in preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does this because the latter Kaya separates him forever from the world of form, conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can participate, the adept being thus precluded from the possibility of helping humanity, or even devas. As a Nirmanakaya, however, the adept leaves behind him only his physical body, and retains every other principle save the Kamic, for he has crushed this out forever from his nature during life, and it can never resurrect in his postmortem state. Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life cycle, in order to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible, yet most effective, manner. Thus a Nirmanakaya is not, as popularly believed, the body "in which a Buddha or a Bodhisattva appears on earth," but verily one who, whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a Yogi during life, has since become a member of that invisible Host which ever protects and watches over humanity within Karmic limits. Mistaken often for a "Spirit," a Deva, God himself, etc., a Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian, angel to him who is worthy of his help. Whatever objection may be brought forward against this doctrine, however much it is denied, because, forsooth, it has never hitherto been made public in Europe, and therefore, since it is unknown to Orientalists, it must needs be a "myth of modern invention"-no one will be bold enough to say that this idea of helping suffering mankind at the price of one's own almost interminable self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and noblest that was ever evolved from the human brain.

Nirvana (Sans.) According to the Orientalists, the entire "blowing-out," like the flame of a candle, the utter extinction of existence. But in the exoteric explanations it is the state of absolute existence and absolute consciousness, into which the Ego of a man who had reached the highest degree of perfection and holiness during life, goes after the body dies, and occasionally, as is the case of Gautama Buddha and others, during life.

Nirvanee (Sans.) One who has attained Nirvana-an emancipated Soul. That Nirvana means something quite different from the puerile assertions of Orientalists, every scholar who has visited India, China, or Japan, is well aware. It is "escape from misery," but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires. If we are told that Abhidharma defines Nirvana as "a state of absolute annihilation" we concur, adding to the last word the qualification "of everything connected with matter or the physical world," and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion or Maya. Sakyamuni Buddha said in the last moments of his life: "the spiritual body is immortal." As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it:

The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence, to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility.

And he might have added "death of all compassion for the world of suffering." And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanees. But the same scholar adds that:

Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the Soul (Spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality, so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may reappear on earth-i.e., in the future Manvantara.

Noumena (Gr.) The true essential nature of Being as distinguished from the illusive objects of sense.

Nous (Gr.) A Platonic term for the Higher Mind or Soul. It means Spirit as distinct from animal-Soul, Psyche; divine consciousness or mind in man. The name was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious Aeon, which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third principle (from above) or Manas, in man. (See Nout.)

Nout (Eg.) In the Egyptian Pantheon it meant the "One-only-One," because it does not proceed in the popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknowable and the Unknown in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindus-Brahmâ , the first manifested deity-"the Mind or spirit Self-potent." This creative principle is the primum mobile of everything to be found in the Universe-its Soul or Ideation. (see "Seven Principles" in man.)