Dattatreya is usually depicted with three heads, symbolising Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; past, present, and future; and the three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. He is portrayed sitting in meditation with his shakti beneath the "audumbara" (wish-fulfilling) tree. In front of him is a fire pit, and around him are four dogs. These are sometimes said to symbolise the four Vedas.
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a group of religious ideas from around the 1st century. "" is the ancient Greek word for "knowledge", but now more closely means "esoteric knowledge". Gnostic ideas were a main part of early Christianity before being persecuted by other Christians. Gnostic ideas are also found in sects of Judaism and Islam, as well as in alchemy and other kinds of esotericism.
The word "Gnostic" was mostly used by people who were against these ideas. For this reason, some researchers have said that Gnosticism is a of many separate religious movements. There are many problems for people who research Gnosticism:
Gnosticism says that humans are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical (or "material") world. They say that the world was made by an imperfect spirit.
The imperfect spirit is thought to be the same as the God of Abraham. The imperfect spirit may be seen as evil, or sometimes just not perfect but doing the best it can.
The real God who is good, is distant and not easy to know. In order to get free from the material world, a person has to get "gnosis". That is the special secret knowledge given only to a few special people.
Some Gnostic groups saw Jesus as sent by the supreme being, to bring "gnosis" to the Earth.
Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (; ;  – ) was a Russian peasant, and a mystical faith healer.
He was not a monk who lived in a monastery, but a religious pilgrim. In 1904 he arrived in the capital St Petersburg. The Tsar and Tsarina talked many times with Rasputin and asked for advice as he became their spiritual guide.
Rasputin had a lot of influence over Tsarina Alexandra, the wife of Tsar Nicholas II, the emperor of Imperial Russia. Alexandra believed that Rasputin was the answer to her worries. Her only son, Tsarevich Alexei, the heir to the throne was very sick. He had hemophilia. It caused heavy bleeding and pain in his groin and legs each time he fell. Rasputin calmed the boy and the parents. From then on, Alexandra believed Rasputin was the only person who could heal her son with his prayers.
Because of this, the Tsar and his family began to trust Rasputin more with important decisions on politics. Rasputin did not support the Tsar when he decided to lead his country into World War I. In July 1914, during a stay in his home village, he was stabbed in his belly by a female conspirator Khioniya Guseva. After seven weeks, Rasputin recovered and went back to the capital. There he lived with his two daughters, who went to school in the capital.
In August 1915, the Tsar decided to lead the country's army himself, and replace his cousin Grand Duke Nikolai. Almost nobody supported him, except Alexandra and Rasputin. Many Russian politicians and nobles became very worried about Rasputin's influence. While the Tsar was at the front, Alexandra and Rasputin took many bad decisions. They proposed to the Tsar, extremely shy and weak-willed, the replacement of several ministers with ones that supported peace. At the end of 1916, Imperial Russia was in a chaotic state. In the big cities there was almost nothing to eat or heat. All the trains were used to supply the army. Some politicians in the parliament decided to attack Alexandra and Rasputin. Their goal was to go on with the war, even though there were heavy losses and a lack of weapons and ammunition.
In the night of 30 December 1916, Rasputin was led into the Yusupov palace's basement. He was offered wine. When he got drunk, he was shot twice by Prince Felix Yusupov. One shot went into his right kidney and then into his spine. He climbed some stairs and staggered out of the palace through a back door. Rasputin was shot again in the courtyard. To be sure he was dead, he was shot in the forehead at close range. (Nobody knows who fired that shot.) Grand Duke Dmitri drove the conspirators to the Neva River. There they dropped his body from the bridge. In the meantime, Prince Felix had killed his favorite dog, to cover the blood in the courtyard. A few days later Rasputin's body, completely frozen, was found stuck in the ice. The next day the corpse was buried in a park next to the Alexander Palace. After the February Revolution, the new leaders decided to dig up his body to prevent it from becoming a place of worship; and eventually burned it.
Grimoire
Grimoire is a book of witchcraft or paranormal magic. The word is pronounced "grim-warr", which rhymes with "guitar".
The word is a mistaken way of saying "grammar". It probably started being used in a time when not many people could read. Then any book might be thought to contain instructions for magic.
In the religion of Wicca other forms of Neopaganism, such a book is sometimes called a "Book of Shadows".
Hermeticism
Hermeticism is the study and practice of occult philosophy and magic. The name comes from the fact that the first books about Hermeticism are said to have been written by the god Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice-Greatest Hermes"), who combines aspects of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth.
Hermeticism is also connected with astrology and alchemy. These beliefs were strong in Europe during the Renaissance. The Hermetic Corpus was translated by Marsilio Ficino in 1463 and published in 1471. At this time, the Hermetic Corpus was thought to be older than both Plato and Pythagoras.
In 1614, Isaac Causabon showed that the texts were actually written sometime between 200 and 300 AD. This view was based on careful study of the way language was used in the original writings.
Hermeticism was revived in the 19th century in Western Europe. The most famous group involved in this revival was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Illuminati
The Illuminati (the “enlightened ones”) was a late 18th century German political secret society. Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian philosopher and lawyer, started the secret society on the 1st of May 1776 at the university of ingolstat. In 1785 it was outlawed in Bavaria.
Originally, they opposed superstition, prejudice, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power. They supported women’s education and gender equality.
Later, other groups formed using the same name. There is no evidence that these present-day groups have any significant power or influence. They promote themselves using the Bavarian Illuminati to attract membership.
Simputer
The Simputer is a small, cheap device, similar to personal digital assistant (palmtop). The unique feature of this device is a smart-card interface which allows a single Simputer to be used by many users. User's private data might be kept on a cheap smart-card. This device was constructed by Indian company- Simputer Trust. The name stands for "Simple computer".
The Simputer project was invented during the organization of the Global Village, an International Seminar on Information Technology for Developing Countries. It was conducted in October 1998. The discussion was about big need for a low-cost mass access device which will bring local-language IT to the masses. During inventing a name for new established original device, the purpose was to find complex acronym to fit the name Simputer. Thus Simputer is a Simple, Inexpensive, Multi-lingual comPUTER. Later it was expanded to Simple, Inexpensive Multi-lingual People's compUTER. Now it is also called "computer for the masses".