A term used in Helena P. BLAVATSKY’s The Secret Doctrine to describe an unnamed being who is at the head of the hierarchy of adepts in the world. He is “the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc., have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane — the ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. . . . He is the ‘Initiator,’ called the ‘GREAT SACRIFICE.’ . . . Because . . . he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind” (SD I:207-208). Blavatsky further states that it is under the direct and silent guidance of this Maha-Guru that all the other teachers and instructors of mankind became the guides of humanity.

© Copyright by the Theosophical Publishing House, Manila