From
Theosophical Glossary by HP Blavatsky. 1892.
Soma (Sk.). The moon, and also the juice of the plant of that name used in the temples for trance purposes; a sacred beverage. Soma, the moon, is the symbol of the Secret Wisdom. In the Upanishads the word is used to denote gross matter (with an association of moisture) capable of producing life under the action of heat. (See “ Soma-drink ”.)
Soma-drink. Made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans. This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, quaffed by the gods of Olympus. A cup of Kykeôn was also quaffed by the Mystes at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Bradhna, or the place of splendour (Heaven). The Soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real Soma; and even kings and Rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug, by his own confession, shows in his Aitareya Brâhmana, that it was not the Soma that he tasted and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagradha, a plant or bush which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true Soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants of the Rishis, the real Agnihôtris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The Soma drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks thereof is made to participate in the heavenly king; he becomes filled with his essence, as the Christian apostles and their converts were. filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The Soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it bestows the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest “ spirit” of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical Soma, with his “irrational soul ”, or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and
participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven, Thus the Hindu Soma is mystically and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers—the mantras—this liquor is supposed to be immediately transformed into the real Soma, or the angel, and even into Brahmâ himself. Some missionaries have expressed themselves with much indignation about this ceremony, the more so, seeing that the Brahmans generally use a kind of spirituous liquor as a substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the transubstantiation of the communion wine into the blood of Christ, because this wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol attached to it the same? But the missionaries say that this hour of soma-drinking is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial cup. (Isis Unveiled.)
Soma-loka (Sk.). A kind of lunar abode where the god Soma, the regent of the moon, resides. The abode of the Lunar Pitris—or Pitriloka.