A Glossary of the Order
Terms used in the archive
The Apotheotic Order uses a small number of terms in particular senses. They are gathered here for the reader’s convenience, with references to the entries in which they are explained.
Ankh. The Egyptian sign 𓋹, also written ☥, principal symbol of the Order. In Egypt the sign of divine life; for the Order, the gift of a mind able to create. Also called the key of life. See The Ankh.
Apotheon. The Order of Apotheon: another name for the Apotheotic Order.
Apotheosis. From the Greek, “making divine”: the raising of a mortal to the gods. For the Order, the approach of humanity to the divine through creation. See On Apotheosis.
Associate. One who shares the Order’s purpose and takes it as their own. Association needs no registration and involves no oath. See The fellowship.
Canon. The few works the Order holds closest, as the fullest statements of its conviction. See The Canon.
Chapter. Members of the Order gathered in one place. See The fellowship.
Charge. The threefold duty expressed in the motto: to create, to preserve, to uphold. See To Create, To Preserve, To Uphold.
Divine. In the Order’s usage, whatever is worthy of the highest reverence: the sacred as it is met in human experience, in wonder, beauty and meaning, and above all in the power to make. A believer may find God present in it; one who believes in no god may understand it as the highest that the human mind can know or conceive. To approach the divine, in either sense, is the aim the Order calls apotheosis. The ultimate source that may or may not lie behind it is called the Supreme Divine.
First and Second Breath. The Order’s teaching on life received and life returned: the gift of a living, creative mind, and that mind giving life in turn to what it makes. See The First and Second Breath.
Golden Chain. The line of teachers, translators and readers through whom the Order’s inheritance was handed on, from Hermes and Plato to Ficino, Blake and Coleridge. See The Golden Chain.
Honorary Knight Apotheon. The single honorary degree of the Order, conferred honoris causa upon those whose lives or works exemplify its ideals, and recorded on the Roll of Honour. See Honorary Knights Apotheon.
Inheritances, the three. The historical traditions the Order has received: Egyptian antiquity, the Hellenistic and late antique world, and the Renaissance. See The Three Inheritances.
Knight Apotheon. A member who has undertaken the Order’s guarded oaths. See The Knights Apotheon.
Lila. The Sanskrit word for play, used in Indian thought of the free and joyful activity by which the divine makes the world. See On Divine Play.
Member. One formally admitted into the fellowship and entrusted with its inner teachings. See The fellowship.
Patron. A figure whose teaching gives a fellowship its bearing. The patron of the Order is Hermes Trismegistus. See The Patronage of Hermes.
Poetic Genius. William Blake’s name, adopted by the Order, for the universal faculty through which humanity receives the divine and gives it form. See The Poetic Genius.
Roll of Honour. The register of Honorary Knights Apotheon. See The Roll of Honour.
Sacred faculty. The capacity of living minds to conceive what has never been, to give it form, and to endow existence with meaning; the faculty the Order holds sacred. See The Sacred Faculty.
Sanctuary. A place set apart for reverence. The Order counts libraries, archives and galleries among its sanctuaries, and honours the sanctuaries of others. See On the Nature of Temples.
Second god. In the Hermetic writings, the world itself, living and made in the image of its maker; humanity is called the third. See Nothing Perishes.
Supreme Divine. The Order’s name for the ultimate reality or power that may or may not lie behind all existence, whose nature is left to individual conviction. See The Supreme Divine.
Three Signs. The ankh, the djed and the was: life, stability and dominion in Egyptian art, read by the Order as its threefold charge. See The Three Signs.