The Mystical Powers of the Seals

The classical texts of yoga state the power of the mudras without reserve.

In order, therefore, to awaken this goddess, who is sleeping at the entrance of Brahma Dwâra (the great door), mudrâs should be practised well.Haṭhayogapradīpikā 3.5, trans. Pancham Sinh (1914)

These are the ten Mudrâs which annihilate old age and death. They have been explained by Âdi Nâtha (Śiva) and give eight kinds of divine wealth.Haṭhayogapradīpikā 3.7-3.8

There are twenty-five mudrās, the practice of which gives success to the Yogis.Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā 3.1, trans. S. C. Vasu

The traditions explain this power in four ways.

• The hand as microcosm. Indian teaching assigns the five elements to the five fingers: the thumb to fire, the index finger to air, the middle finger to aether, the ring finger to earth and the little finger to water. Joining a finger to the thumb kindles its element; folding it under the thumb restrains it. Kundalini Yoga reads the same fingers through the planets, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and Mercury, and Chinese medicine through its five phases.
• The closed circuit. A finger joined to another closes a circle. The life force, prana, which would otherwise disperse through the open hands, is turned back into the body and directed to a centre or an organ.
• Body, speech and mind. In the esoteric schools the seal is never alone: it is joined to the sacred syllable and to the visualised image. The three together form a single act of the whole person.
• Protection and invocation. From the Baopuzi to the Hindu puja, seals ward off what harms and invite what helps. The seals of invocation in this collection are the gestures by which the deity is called, installed and held present.

Zevism reads the seal as the signature of the Logos impressed upon the body. Through it the person, as Plato teaches, becomes like the God as far as is possible: ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν (Theaetetus 176b). For that reason the effects of every seal in this collection are set out in five domains.

The physical, emotional and intellectual effects are given as the traditions record them. The domains of Soul and Ascent give their spiritual meaning and the Temple's reading of it.