Psychic, Occult and Mystical Definitions

Letter: V

The process of forming positive thoughts as a means of creating wellness. Initial uses of visualization in healing were sourced on a religious and/or mystical tradition, pervading the thought of the mystery schools including the Hermetic, the Platonic philosophers, the Essenes, and later the Cabbalists, the Rosicrucians, and Gnostic Christians. The earliest records go as far back as the ancient Babylonians and Sumerians. The common factor was a belief in the predominance of spirit over matter, of mind over body. Practitioners believed that matter was an expression of the mind, and many contemporary thinkers convey the same belief. Swami Rama Tirtha (famous wise man of India, 1873-1906), for example, explained his ability to control his heart rate, blood flow, and other physical processes by stating that "all of the body is in the mind, but not all of the mind is in the body."

Visualization and Imagery

Vikings

Marauders, or pirates, that came from Scandinavia — what is now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The people who lived there were Norsemen, or Northmen. These Norsemen took part in swift, cruel raids along the coasts of Europe. Their expression for this type of warfare was to "go a-viking." Vik in Norse means "harbor" or "bay." The Vikings came to be the most feared raiders of their time and were the only Norsemen with whom most Europeans came in contact. Their name was given to the era that dated from about 740 AD to about 1050 — the Viking Age.

The Roman goddess of beauty and sensual love, identified with the Greek Aphrodite (which was less directly sexual) and the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Venus is in some accounts said to have sprung from the foam of the sea, in others to have been the daughter of Jupiter and the nymph Dione; for the Greeks, Zeus and a Titan. Some scholars view her as a manifestation of the Phoenician goddess Astarte. Venus was married to Vulcan (Hephaestus), but had affairs with Mars (Ares) and many other gods and demigods. Cupid (Eros) was the product of one of these affairs, this time with Mercury (Hermes).

Venus

Vampire

In folklore, a vampire is a malign spirit — usually believed to be a restless soul of a heretic, criminal or suicide — that refuses to join the ranks of the dead but instead leaves its burial place — in its original body or taking possession of another's corpse — and becomes a bloodsucking creature in order to continue enjoying the pleasures of the living. The belief in vampires dates back to antiquity. Ancient Mesopotamians feared that corpses not properly buried would rise from their graves and attack the living to suck their blood. Western notions of the vampire come primarily from Slavic folklore, especially as it was interpreted by the author Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula (1897). In some isolated regions of eastern Europe, peasants still hang wreaths of garlic over their doors — a preventive measure cited in Dracula — as protection against evil spirits, but many other aspects of Stoker's story may have been his own invention.

In Norse mythology, the banquet hall where the principal god, Odin, played host to the Einherjar, the souls of warriors who had died a courageous death in battle. Valhalla was the largest building in Asgard, the heavenly home of the gods, and it constituted one of Asgard's 12 realms. There the Einherjar feasted while awaiting the final battle of the world, Ragnarok. The Einherjar were brought to Valhalla by Odin's warlike maidens, the Valkyries, who were sent out by Odin to gather the souls of heroes as they fell on the battlefields. The name Valhalla is derived from the Old Icelandic term Valholl, meaning "hall of the slain." The Norse vikings were a warrior people, and in their warrior religion, stories of Valhalla played an important role. There was no other "heaven," and warriors who did not die valiantly in battle went to the murky, miserable underworld. And unlike the Christian concept of heaven, Valhalla itself was not a place of eternal reward.

Valhalla