Somapa

Derived from Sanskrit, "Soma" (सोम) refers to the Moon or the intoxicating divine drink, and "pa" (प) means "drinker" or "one who drinks." Thus, Somapa literally translates to "Moon-drinker" or "one who drinks Soma," pointing to lunar or celestial connection.

A class of Lunar Pitris. (See "Trisuparna.") Somnambulism Lit, "sleep-w^alking", or moving, acting, writing, reading and performing every function of waking consciousness in one's sleep, with utter oblivion of the fact on awakening. This is one of the great ps.ycho-physiological phenomena, the least understood as it is th(> most puzzling, to which Occultism alone holds the key.

Blavatsky's definition of Somapa, bridging the celestial and the terrestrial, offers a fascinating glimpse into a worldview where the ancestral realm is not merely a distant memory but an active presence, intertwined with the very fabric of consciousness. The association with the Moon, a celestial body long linked to cycles, intuition, and the subconscious, imbues the term with a profound resonance. In Hindu thought, the Pitris are revered ancestors, often residing in lunar mansions, whose blessings are sought for prosperity and lineage. The "drinking of Soma" by these beings elevates them, suggesting a spiritual sustenance that transcends mortal understanding.

This connection to the "Moon-drinker" then extends, in Blavatsky's rendering, to the phenomenon of somnambulism. This is not merely a physiological anomaly but a state of altered consciousness, a "sleep-walking" where the individual performs actions with an "utter oblivion" upon awakening. This echoes Mircea Eliade's observations on the shamanic journey, where the ecstatic state allows for travel to other realms, often with a subsequent amnesia of the trance itself. The somnambulist, in this light, becomes a temporary inhabitant of a liminal space, akin to the Pitris dwelling in their lunar abodes, accessing a knowledge or performing an action beyond the grasp of the waking ego. The "occultism" Blavatsky claims holds the key points to a tradition that understood these states not as pathologies but as windows into deeper realities, where the boundaries between the living and the dead, the conscious and the unconscious, become permeable. It is a reminder that the most profound journeys may occur when the ordinary senses are dimmed, and the soul, like the Somapa, drinks from celestial, or subterranean, wells of being.

RELATED_TERMS: Pitri, Soma, Lunar Mansions, Ancestor Veneration, Altered States of Consciousness, Liminality, Ecstasy, Subconscious.