(Theosophical/Tibetan) A term used by H.P. Blavatsky to represent the essence of cosmic electricity, vital force.
“This light of the Logos is the link . . . between objective matter and the subjective thought of Eswara (or Logos). It is called in several Buddhist books Fohat. It is the one instrument with which the Logos works.” —H.P.Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (1888)
“The whole Kosmos must necessarily exist in the One Source of energy from which this light (Fohat) emanates.” Whether we count the principles in Kosmos and man as seven or only as four, the forces of, and in, physical Nature are Seven; and it is stated by the same authority that “Pragna, or the capacity of perception, exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter” (Personal and impersonal God). For, “just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the Solar System exists in seven different conditions” (ibid). So does Fohat.* He is One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and is the “spirit” of ELECTRICITY, which is the LIFE of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it the ONE LIFE; as an objective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at the upper rung with the One Unknowable CAUSALITY, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of Matter. Thus, while science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent LAW and sentient LIFE, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him whom the Christians call the “Messengers” of their God (who is in reality only the Elohim, or rather one of the Seven Creators called Elohim), and we, the “Messenger of the primordial Sons of Life and Light.” —H.P.Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (1888)
“He (Fohat) is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods; the “Word made flesh” on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in Universal Life.… In India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, “to pervade,” and Fohat is called the “Pervader” and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material…” —H.P.Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (1888)
The term fohat has recently been linked with the Tibetan verb phro-wa and the noun spros-pa. These two terms are listed in Jäschke”s Tibetan-English Dictionary (1881) as, for phro-wa, “to proceed, issue, emanate from, to spread, in most cases from rays of light…” while for spros-pa he gives “business, employment, activity.”
An extremely mystical term used in the occultism of Tibet for what in Sanskrit is called daiviprakriti, which means “divine nature” or “primordial nature,” and which also can be called “primordial light.” In one sense of the word fohat may be considered as almost identical with the old mystical Greek eros, but fohat as a technical term contains within itself a far wider range of ideas than does the Greek term.
Fohat may be considered as the essence of kosmic electricity, provided, however, that in this definition we endow the term electricity with the attribute of consciousness; or, to put it more accurately, provided that we understand that the essence of electricity is indeed consciousness. It is ever-present and active from the primordial beginnings of a manvantara to its last end, nor does it then actually pass out of existence, but becomes quiescent or latent as it were, sleeping or dormant during the kosmic pralaya. In one sense of the word it may be called kosmic will, for the analogy with the conscious will in human beings is exceedingly close. It is the incessantly active, ever-moving, impelling or urging force in nature, from the beginning of the evolution of a universe or of a solar system to its end.
H. P. Blavatsky, quoting one of the ancient mystically occult works, says in substance: “Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider.” If, however, we liken fohat to what the conscious will is in the human being, we must then think only of the lower or substantial parts — the pranic activities — of the human will, for behind the substantial parts stands always the directing and guiding consciousness. Fohat being incessantly active is therefore both formative and destructive, because it is through the ceaseless working of fohat that unending change continues — the passing of one phase of manifested existence to another phase, whether this manifested existence be a solar system or a planetary chain or a globe or human being or, indeed, any entity.
Fohat is as active among the electrons of an atom and among the atoms themselves as it is among the suns. In one sense it may be called the vital force of the universe, corresponding from this viewpoint to the pranic activity on all the seven planes of the human constitution. Occult Glossary, Gottfried De Purucker