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Many times in our work of meditation, of the path of the sacred arcana, we must face many battles against negative forces. Anyone who initiates their spirituality must confront their own mind, but also those entities or beings who constitute what we call the black lodge. They also confront us many times in our efforts, primarily because this kind of work is contrary to their interests, their concerns.
There is always this battle and struggle within religion between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman amongst the Zoroastrians, or Christ and the devil, good and evil, positive negative, light versus darkness. When these forces meet, they form twilight within the initiate, because the person who battles themselves must also confront all the entities of the black lodge, all the demons of that path who wants to pull the student into the internal dimensions, the infernal planes. This is a very dangerous arcanum, specifically since it is uncertain what the outcome will be. But we know from tradition that all the great heroes who fight very diligently against themselves like Perseus, Theseus against the Minotaur, Aeneas, and many masters of meditation. They are successful, like we witness in the Opera Turandot with Prince Calaf, who faced the twilight of his own mind when he was confronted by all the people of Peking in Act 3, who wanted to steal his light, take from him his powers. So this arcanum is about the battle between the soul and the ego, both within and without. As we stated there are two lodges: the white and the black, the angels and the devils. In this teaching, we have to define ourselves very specifically, because the outcome of this doctrine, according to Samael Aun Weor, is either an angel or a demon. There is no middle ground. We have to really define who we are and work for what we want. This teaching of the white path is about eliminating the ego: lust, pride, anger, vanity, laziness, gluttony, etc. All the defects we carry within must be annihilated, but of course, this is contrary to the current that is swallowing humanity and is bringing people down into suffering. Twilight reminds us of the hours of Lucifer-Venus, 4 a.m., which we spoke extensively about in the previous arcana as well as the Opera Turandot. We can meditate very profoundly at 4 a.m. before the sun rises to achieve profound astral projections, but this is also a very dangerous time because the forces of the black lodge are very active. Personally, I was in the habit and have been in the habit of waking up at 4 a.m. to meditate and work on my mind. Many times I would go deep and fall asleep and enter the astral plane, sometimes in higher octaves, but many times not so high, because there is a superior astral dimension and there is an inferior astral dimension. In the superior astral dimension, we only find angels, gods, Beni Elohim, the sons of the divine Christ. Many times, those masters can show us our level of being. They show us in the atmosphere of the astral plane, the mental plane, the heavens. If it is clear with stars, it means ascension, victory, unification with the divine. If it is cloudy, it means that we have too much ego. As I said, the mind is like air. If it is cloudy, we do not see the light of the sun. Instead, what we see is twilight, obscuration, darkness. Many times, if you awaken in the lunar astral plane, the inferior astral dimension, what you see there is a very fatal light glowing―sometimes pinkish, sometimes of different hues, like a green color sometimes. It is a very dangerous time for invocations because our own ego can invoke demons at that hour very easily. I have had that happen to me where trying to invoke, “In the Name of Christ, by the Power of Christ, for the Glory of Christ, Samael Aun Weor!” Many times, being in that dimension, my own ego had invoked certain negative entities that I have connections with because, in my past, unfortunately, I delved like many of us into black magic. It is very unfortunate. This humanity has really dived and indulged itself into desire, into the mind. It is very rare to find someone in this teaching who does not have egos of sorcery, who never practiced that art. So therefore, we do not accuse anybody of being a witch or a black magician, because if we point our finger at someone, we have three pointing towards us and our thumb to heaven saying, “Look at me, what I am!” So, in this hour we can invoke many entities that are negative because, unfortunately, our own egos have many ties to the black lodge, and in this science, we are working against that, that current, that tendency. This is the Arcanum of Twilight: the battle against good and evil precisely in those hours. If we are chaste and really serious about our purity mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically, then we cannot be harmed. This is what Samael Aun Weor stated. But the problem is that we have a lot of defects, and so it can be very easy in that hour, you are trying to invoke a Christic master and instead you get an archdemon. It has happened in my experience many times. This is something I have really fought to work against and have been helped, because any one of us can change, if we want. Intellectual and Intuitive Kabbalists
In this arcanum, Samael Aun Weor stated that this is the war between the intellectual and the intuitive kabbalists. So what is intellectual kabbalah? It is the theories and studies of anyone who stores that kind of knowledge solely in the mind, and we know that those people who deify the mind are the sorcerers, the black magicians. They fortify desire. They fortify the ego, the mind, the intellect.
But the intuitive kabbalists develop the heart. They experience divinity for themselves. They know what Christ is, and so follow that very faithfully. I believe we talked about in Arcanum 2: The High Priestess a teaching from the Qur’an about the intuitive kabbalists. “Only those who are possessors of intellect, possessors of seeds, ulul al-bab in Arabic, will be able to interpret the signs of Allah” (3:7). What is this possessor of intellect? I personally think that is a very poor translation. We think intellect is thought, reasoning, but that is not the real meaning. In a deeper sense, it means “possessors of kernels, of seeds.” The seed is the creative power of God, the sexual energy, which we transmute in our work. The shells are the theories, the beliefs, the dogmas of the Kabbalists of Israel. A shell is a קליפה klifah. It is an ego. It is an empty shell devoid of any spiritual substance or meaning. קליפות Klipoth is hell. It is the world of shells, of illusions, of appearances. So what is a possessor of kernels? Someone who has real understanding, who is intuitive. It means they work with the sexual seed and they eliminate the shells of the ego. That is a profound difference that people do not discriminate or understand. But this is a battle, and many times we have to defend ourselves in this teaching precisely because our work goes against the grain of humanity. Humanity has entered devolution into the infernal planes and wants to bring all beings into suffering within the entrails of the earth, within the lunar spheres, as we explained in our Arcanum 9: The Hermit, as well as the previous arcana. They want to feed the ego and they want to be pulled down into the earth to disintegrate. That is a path of demons, and many follow that way. “Broad is the way and wide is the path that leads to destruction, and many go in thereat,” said Christ. “But straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). That path is חיה Chaiah, the path of the Holy Spirit, the perfect matrimony. So first, we must understand these arcana in ourselves. We have to study them intellectually. We have to comprehend them with the mind in the beginning. But then the real struggle becomes understanding, in principle, from experience. First understand how twilight in us works when we battle against our own mind. If you are very serious about your work as you are working on yourself, you will naturally attract people or entities that want you to be stagnant or to change or to enter devolution. In most cases, this happens internally, not so much physically, but we do meet people in our lectures or meditations or retreats, people who practice sorcery, but we do not condemn them. At least the good gnostics, the real ones, do not condemn others. Unfortunately, in this movement, there is the tendency to want to blame, “So-and-so is a sorcerer. So-and-so is a witch, a demon. Excommunicate him or her!” This has caused so many problems in the Gnostic movement because people are very fanatical. What they do not understand is that none of us are innocent. We are not meek sheep. As Samael Aun Weor stated, we are all cannibals dressed as gentlemen, as ladies who are cannibals as well―men and women who are demonic. Therefore, we cannot judge people. But it is true that in this path we have to change and so we have to face this very dangerous arcanum by confronting ourselves. 
Description of the Card
Let us look at the actual glyph.
We see the very bottom a scorpion within the waters of the card, the bottom third. This reminds us of the sign of Scorpio, which is governed by Samael, the angel of strength. It is interesting that the Angel Samael Aun Weor governs Aries in the head, and the Zohar speaks of him as the serpent, the creative fire of Kundalini, who rises from Scorpio and sex, up to Aries in the head, in order to make us an angel, a master. In this arcanum, the scorpion is at the bottom, because if we fall, we sting our Divine Mother like a scorpion. We poison Her, because that power of Kundalini above is heavenly. But if we waste our fire, we poison our soul. We sting ourselves. We enter devolution. We kill our Divine Mother, says Samael Aun Weor, whenever the sexual energy is let out. It creates tremendous suffering, spiritually speaking, and it feeds desire, ego. We see most prominently in this card, two pyramids―one white, one black. We also see two dogs or two wolves who are juxtaposed against each other―one white, one black. White is positive, symbolizing friendship. The other is negative, representing the psychological “I,” the ego. This is the arcanum of light and darkness, the terrible struggle that any initiate must encounter when they want to return to divinity. In order to elaborate on these points, this battle of light and darkness and how Arcanum 18 permeates the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death (קליפות Klipoth), I would like to read for you, from a great Sufi master by the name of Ibn ‘Arabi, from his book Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, where he talks about this precise struggle and the way to overcome it: Ignorance and subjection to the ego abase a person. Intelligence and knowledge raise a person to perfection. But there are eclipses in this ascension, which are caused by the shadow cast upon the moon by the earth. Just so, our love for and attachment to the world and the desires of the flesh cause the interruption of our evolution. But just as the world is brought alive by sunshine, so the human being is made living by the divine light reflecting from his soul.
Why did the Sufis say there are 18,000 universes? Because there are nine ספירת sephiroth above מלכות Malkuth and nine inverted ספירת sephiroth below מלכות Malkuth―heaven, hell, and the human soul within מלכות Malkuth has to choose: go up or go down. This is why the Muslims make such emphasis on the war between the believers and the infidels, al-المؤمنين al-Muminin versus الكافرون al-Kafirun―the white magicians versus the black magicians, the soul versus the ego.
Sometimes a difficulty may arise. We may lose hope that this path, this trend of thought, will bring us to salvation, felicity, and perfection.
What does it mean that God said, “Am I not your Lord?” and the soul said, “yes”? It refers to a covenant within אין סוף Ain Soph, the star of our Being, the universal cosmic star within the depths of the Absolute, ٱللَّٰهِ Allah, divinity. We as a soul emanated from that source down the Tree of Life to enter מלכות Malkuth and then to begin the journey up, the return to our star of Bethlehem, of divinity, of Christ. This is known as the Being Parktdolg Duty of Gurdjieff, where we must follow the impetus of our inner Christ, our Being.
That is the original promise of the human essence to God, and it exists in every one of us.
This is mechanical creation, mechanical forces, evolution, devolution, but obviously this path is about revolution.
It is by following our soul that we are at one with the divine harmony. ―Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom
So remember our Being who says, “Am I not your Lord?“ and the soul says, “Yes. I affirm it!” That is how we overcome twilight. Remember God. Remember the presence of divinity in moments of great trial and temptation and crisis.
Conjurations and Invocations for Spiritual Protection
When in the internal planes, we must defend ourselves with prayer and conjuration, as we began this practice today. We did the Conjurations of the Four, the Seven, and the Invocation of Solomon.
These prayers are exceptionally powerful for rejecting those forces, but there are many more in our tradition that we use and you can use it internally and even physically to prepare your home or space for meditation, or when in a moment of trial in the astral plane, you are confronted with negative forces and you have to reject those entities, literally, combat them by invoking divinity and asking Christ to expel, to reject those beings.
But learning how to use those prayers is, of course, very difficult in the beginning. Many of our students have trouble remembering. It takes a lot of practice to memorize these prayers, but even more difficult is learning how to use them internally in the moment. The Duality of Sex, Light, and Darkness
This is the battle between light and darkness. In this card, we see the moon, the crescent moon at the very top third of the card. This moon represents יסוד Yesod, sex. We must convert the lunar energies of our sexual organs into the sun of the spirit. This is the science of alchemy. We do so through the science of love, Venus.
Even within the tradition of Islam, we find the crescent moon and the star of Venus, referring to the hours of Lucifer-Venus when Prophet Muhammad and many masters would wake up to perform supererogatory prayer. He said, often in the oral tradition of Islam, it is best to wake up early and to practice, to perform extra prayers. There is even a verse in the Qur’an where he states, "And the recitation at dawn. How great is the recitation at dawn, for it is ever witnessed” (17:78), literally by the angels and even the demons. They watch the neophyte to see what he or she will do. "For truly, do you not know that your Lord will raise you to a praiseworthy station" (Qur’an 17:79) because if you are working very seriously at that hour, you can have many samadhis, superior states of experience. If I am telling you this is because this is what I have done in the past and I am doing now. I have received that help. 
We must convert the moon into a sun, and this moon is paralleled by these two dogs. The dog is another symbol of the sexual power, the instinct. We know amongst dogs that they are driven by passion. When they need to procreate, they do. It is an animal behavior, but people do not understand that the dog in ancient symbologies, ancient traditions, represents this force in us. This dog is a symbol of duality of that force. That power, that instinct, can be controlled and used to take us to the very heights of divinity, or that dog can pull us into hell, and we will talk about the myth of Cerberus, the three-headed dog, who is precisely the sexual power that can take us to the very heavens, or enslave us. These two dogs, white and black, represent that duality.
We also have the sign of Neptune at the bottom right. This sign has a trident, three points. Neptune relates to the power of the waters, the god of the sea, Poseidon, who is a representation of the Holy Spirit amongst the Greeks and the Romans.
The three points of his trident represent כתר Kether, חכמה Chokmah, בינה Binah―Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We work with the power of Neptune, the waters, in order to conquer ourselves. I believe we likewise have the sign of Scorpio, which we discussed from the Zodiac, this bottom left on the card. Lastly at the end of this lecture, we will talk about צ Tzadi, the top-right Hebrew character, which is in words like עץ החיים otz chaim, the Tree of Life, or עץ הדעת טוב ורע otz ha-da'ath tob vay ra, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The word צדי Tzadi or the letter צ Tzadi we find in names like צדיק Tzadik, “righteous one,” and will explain how this relates to the card at the end. The Nine Heavens and Nine Hells
But let us talk about some of the principles of this card.
In relation to a Arcanum 18, the number 1 plus 8 is 9. Nine is the ספירת sephiroth from יסוד Yesod to the top of the Tree of Life. We know that there are nine layers in hell accounted to by Dante in his Divine Comedy. These are nine inverted ספירת sephiroth or spheres of being in which the lost souls degenerate, devolve, progressively, very slowly with a lot of pain in the interior of the earth, entering more submerged states as those laws of those dimensions, that pressure, disintegrates the ego within the person. Unlike Catholicism, hell is not a place of eternal damnation. Instead, hell is a recycling plant. Those souls who did not work on themselves, on their own ego willingly, to extract the seed, the light of their consciousness from the mind, out of compassion, divinity sends them down, so that by nature, the ego can be annihilated in a very mechanical but prolonged and painful way. It is not pleasant to enter the internal dimensions, but if the soul does not do it in order to return to divinity, divinity, out of love, the Divine Mother out of compassion, sends them down so that they can be destroyed, so that the soul, once extracted, returns as an elemental back to the forces of evolution, back on the wheel of Samsara as we discussed in Arcanum 10: Retribution. Those souls enter the mineral kingdom and then through many millions of years and aeons, may graduate each department of the kingdom: mineral, plant, animal, until returning to a humanoid state. That is the path of mechanicity, the path of nature. The path of the revolution of the consciousness is about freeing ourselves from that, from that influence, so that we can enter the nine heavens, which is the Tree of Life, nine ספירת sephiroth: יסוד Yesod, הוד Hod, נצח Netzach, תפארת Tiphereth, גבורה Geburah, חסד Chesed, בינה Binah, חכמה Chokmah, כתר Kether. But if you count מלכות Malkuth, the earth, that is ten. Nine heavens. Nine hells. These are the nine cellars of occult Masonry or the 18,000 universes of the Sufis. The ninth cellar within Masonry responds or relates to the nucleus of our planet Earth and our body, our bodies and Earth with nine layers, symbolically speaking. The nine ספירת sephiroth, the ninth sphere of יסוד Yesod, relates to sexuality. This is where we find the sepulcher of Hiram Abif amongst the Masons, Hiram, Osiris, the divine architect who built the temple of Solomon, שׁלמה Shalomah, the solar man. Hiram, Osiris, is Christ, who is slain and must be resurrected. 
This divinity in us was annihilated or assassinated in us by three traitors. The Masons call them Sebal, Stokin, Ortelut, or amongst the Christians: Judas, Pilate, Caiaphas. Judas, the demon of desire; Pilate, the demon of the mind; and Caiaphas, the demon of evil will.
We have to descend to the ninth sphere in order to confront ourselves. We talked previously about how in this path, especially the very beginning in relation to the mysteries of initiation, we must enter in the internal planes down the nine ספירת sephiroth of hell, enter the nine initiations of Minor Mysteries, the probationary path, where in a manner of speaking, we confront certain ordeals about ourselves. We are shown―if you wish to enter heaven―“you first have to descend.” You have to face yourself and many experiences about your own mind. It is interesting that in this struggle between heaven and hell in us, 9 plus 9 is 18, is Twilight. We learned to conquer ourselves by working in the ninth sphere. The ninth sphere relates to יסוד Yesod. It is the ninth ספירה sephirah from the top to the bottom of the Tree of Life. It is sexuality. The supreme test is in a marriage, in which in the moments of sexual union, husband and wife must conserve and control the fire. They must work very diligently, never to lose the sacred wine of the alchemist, which is the seminal forces. However, it is not enough just to conserve those forces either, but to control them and to sublimate them through breath, through prayer, through love― using the breath, mantras, and sacred sounds so that those forces rise, from the gonads, as energy, up the caduceus of Mercury to our pineal gland, to our brain―and by meditating daily on the annihilation of the ego, the serpent Kundalini rises gradually. It is like a sword. It is the Hebrew letter ז Zayin, which is the weapon of the great heroes, the great masters. The supreme ordeal of Twilight is facing our own desires, especially when one is married. We know that we are all children of sex. We were born through the sexual act. But likewise, spiritually, we must be born again, as we have explained many times, spiritually, not literally. But not by belief, but by working with the creative energy. 
We know that the waters in the ninth sphere in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the ninth hell of his experiences, he depicts the lost souls frozen in hell with the water up to their genitals. These are symbols. People read this book, The Divine Comedy, as literature, something made up. Many Catholics do understand, however, the spiritual value of that teaching―to their merit―but the real symbology is not understood by them because they don't know kabbalah, alchemy.
In the ninth sphere, when the soul is being disintegrated in the interior of the earth, there are frozen lakes there in which the lost souls are disintegrated in their lunar protoplasmic bodies and the ego is annihilated. But those souls that Dante says were crying and their tears are freezing, reminds us of the valley of tears. That is our own planet, because those negative forces are pulling מלכות Malkuth down, as we can see on the news. But remember that 9 plus 9 is 18. Nine heavens, nine hells. One 9 is positive, the other is negative. One is positive sexual alchemy with the conservation and transmutation of the sexual energy. The other is black sexual magic in which the energy is always expelled. There is balance between these two nines when there is death of the ego. The forces of light and darkness are transformed. The darkness is turned into light with the annihilation of desire. But this card results negatively without purification. This is the arcanum of the secret enemy that Master Morya speaks about in The Dayspring of Youth. We must learn to sublimate the forces of the יסוד Yesod and fight against lust, especially. 
The Tricipite (Three-Headed) Dog
This is the three-headed dog Cerberus within the Greek myths. The ancients always depicted the dog as a sacred animal. The dog always participated in magical works. They are consecrated to the god Mercury, which is the mercurial science of Hermes, the conservation of hermetically sealing our energies. These are allegories of sexual power and the hierophants of Egypt and Greece always worship the dog. But of course, our anthropologists today are very ignorant thinking that these people literally worshiped animals. In a manner of speaking, if we are in North America, many people worship dogs or cats. But those animals represent the sexual energy, the erotic instinct. It is an extraordinary element that can transform us, transform our mind.
If you have a dream about dogs, it is referring to the sexual energy. I believe there is even the proverb or the saying that “Dog is man's best friend.” I remember having many experiences with dogs after doing a lot of energy practices such as in The Magic of the Runes, the Rune Fah, the Rune Man, the seven vowels, working with energy and mantralizing, sometimes for an hour or two hours or more and then going to sleep. I remember on one occasion, I was riding a sled being pulled by dogs, tons of dogs just running, and they had a kind of wild energy, but it was controlled, referring to the accumulation of their erotic fire and energy. That was very powerful. You can have experiences with this animal, which is of course a symbol of working with the mercury.
We know the dog Cerberus is in the infernal worlds according to the Greek and Roman myths. He was a three-headed dog with enormous flat muzzled heads and a neck surrounded by serpents, which again refers to the sexual symbolism of this power, the Kundalini. But in the myth, he is trapped in hell. We have to free Cerberus from Pluto, the abyss. We must seal the fire from the devil, because instinct is natural. It is an intrinsic power. Sexual attraction is a normal thing, but when the ego adulterates the energies with lust, it pollutes it. Cerberus in the myth is within the entrance of hell or within the depths. He barks at them when they try to escape, but he is very pleasant when they enter in. It is a symbol of how chastity is very difficult. To leave hell and be chaste is very challenging, but to be a fornicator in a devolving person is very simple and easy and pleasant. So the dog and the swan among the Egyptians, the Egyptian Ibis bird, are representations of the Holy Spirit, the sexual energy. This is the glass of Hermes, the Hermetic glass that we must never spill in our life, the wine of alchemy, because no energy should be lost when the couple unites. They must be controlled and raised high, meaning, raise those energies up your spine in a very pure way, in an elevated way. This dog, I believe, was rescued in the myth of Hercules, Heracles, who is a solar hero, a representation חכמה Chokmah, wisdom, Christ. In the twelve labors of Hercules, he had to descend into hell in order to free the dog, take that instinct and return it back to the heavens. Of course, it was difficult work, very easy to fail because as you see in this movement, there are many people who begin these studies, and then they leave because they see how challenging it is for them to renounce their own mind, their own desires. This dog though, if we hold tight to the reins, like in my dream, it can take you all the way up to the heavens, can pull your sleigh. Samael Aun Weor mentions many times to his disciples that there are many people who forget to work with their dog in alchemy. There are people who reach certain heights of development and change, but who may take a pause in their work of alchemy. They may pause for a while in transmutation and because they do not have energy and will available, they stagnate. This happened to Samael Aun Weor in his life. He mentioned in one or few of his books how he was instructed internally to “no longer pause in your work with alchemy with your priestess-wife Litelantes, but learn to continue to work with the fire, the energies of the Sanctum Regnum, the Holy Kingdom.” Some masters will take a pause in their work when it is commanded by divinity, but they always are instructed internally to continue. So, we must never forget our dog. The three heads of this dog represent the Trident: Father, Son, Holy Spirit―the three forces of Neptune, which can take us all the way from hell to the Absolute. We must learn to be chaste. Never abandon our work with transmutation, which is why we emphasize to our students here and online that if you are serious about your work, you will transmute every day, not only just to conserve your seed, but sublimate it. Do mantras and prayers, pranayama, interchangeable nostril breathing. If you are married, work in alchemy. Work daily to sublimate your energy. Without that energy, you cannot work, because a car with no fuel will not drive. But if you have energy available, you can change, do many things, travel very far. That must be coupled with death of the ego, because conserving energy but not comprehending and eliminating desire builds ego, because if you save that energy, it has got to go somewhere. If you use it to feed your anger, that anger becomes much more amplified and terrible. Likewise, we have to sacrifice for humanity, fulfilling the three factors for the revolution of the consciousness. 
The Ninth Sphere
The ninth sphere is in the interior of the Earth, the nucleus. 1 plus 8 is 9. In the interior of our planet Earth within the internal dimensions, we find the sign of the infinite. This is the sign of a eyes of Ra, the Solar God. This is the brain, heart and sex of the genie the Earth Melchizedek, and represents for us the struggle between brain and sex, sex and brain, mind and sexuality, sexuality and mind, in which the couple must overcome desire, intoxication with fornication, wanting to expel the energy.
It is always a difficult struggle for beginners, especially, to learn how to take the current and flow those forces and return them back up to our mind, to no longer let the vital winds flow out, but inward. But with practice it becomes easy. The worst struggle is always heart against heart within the egos of the couple who have to work on their own emotional states, their own lust, envy, jealousy, pride, anger. When we conquer our own sexuality, we become the upright pentagram, the perfected human being whose head points towards heaven. If we give in to fornication, we become the fulminated tower as we explained in a previous arcanum, Arcanum 16: Fragility. Every hero in every mythology descends into the ninth sphere in order to work against the mind. The descent is easy. To enter into sexual union is easy, but to return to the light is very difficult, which is why in the Greek and Roman myths, such as the book of The Aeneid, where Virgil depicts how Aeneas was horrified and terrified entering into hell when he was commanded by Jupiter or by divinity. But if one is persistent one will succeed. It is a great tragedy if one fails, but a great crisis every person has to face in this work. The Psychologies of Lilith and Nahemah
We also talked, in relation to the ninth sphere, about two types of psychology within those dimensions relating to the inhabitants of those spheres. In kabbalah they are Lilith and Nahemah: the two demons and wives of Adam Protoplastos after he fell with Eve. They are symbols of two types of psychology. They represent infrasexuality, inferior sexuality, which is what humanity follows today: the procreation of animals, or indulging in lust in order to enjoy the pleasures of the orgasm, being depleted of the bliss of Eden, the energies of divinity. That is an inferior type of sexuality that humanity follows.
But there is normal sexuality amongst Gnostic couples who are transmuting daily their energies and forces. Then there is super sexuality. That is the sexuality of angels, of gods. But we will talk about these two spheres of Lilith and Nahemah in relation to infrasexuality, because this is what is most common and what we can see from experience. So in the internal dimensions in the interior of the Earth are many beings. The lost souls dwell within the earth, the caves. Just as fish do not see the water that they swim in, so likewise, the beings of the inferior dimensions do not see the element they are in. But if we are awakening our consciousness, we can enter those realms in order to see the fate of those beings, those souls. We must learn to descend, in our meditations and our work, to work with the fire and the water. This fire and water are the power of Genesis which creates worlds, beasts, human beings, and gods. So, many people always talk about ascending to the higher dimensions, that humanity is an evolving arc, in a new age, reaching a guaranteed utopian future. But these beliefs do not equate with reality. If we wish to ascend the superior worlds, we first must descend, because we cannot climb a mountain if we are carrying a bag of stones, the weight of the ego. First remove the ego: anger, pride, lust, vanity, laziness, gluttony. All these defects must be removed so that the weight of the soul is freed, or the weight is free from the soul, so the soul can elevate and go up. But of course, people do not want to change in most cases. The sphere of Lilith is the sphere of abortions, or women who abort their children. This is the region of those who take contraceptive pills and who are enemies of sex. Contraceptives destroy life. They are contrary to conception, and those drugs distort the natural flow and functioning of the sexual energy. It is an abuse of nature. The sphere Lilith is a sphere of abuse, incest, pederasty, terrible crimes against nature, homosexuality, in which the sexual organs are engaged in acts which are contrary to their original purpose. But of course, in these times, especially in Chicago, people glorify homosexuality and lesbianism, non-binary genderism― whatever they want to come up with―complicated philosophies, doctrines, which support the devolving forces and the forces of nature which are pulling people down. Nahemah is a little different, not as degenerated but still negative. It is fornication, adultery, fascination with sex, men and women who like to divorce in order to get married again. This is duality of the ninth sphere. In Arcanum 18, we have the sphere of Lilith and the sphere of Nahemah. These are types of psychology that permeate all of the aspects of the infernal dimensions and all of us have, to some degree, those elements that we need to understand and annihilate. Inner Struggles with the Unbelievers, Infidels, or Black Magicians
In order to be free of that, we work with the 33 chambers of our spine, the 33 vertebrae, the 33 degrees of occult masonry, the 33 years in the life of Jesus. We raise the Kundalini by meditating on the ego, annihilating it, working in a marriage, sacrificing for others. The Kundalini rises in accordance with the merits of our heart, our virtues, our soul. This is how we obtain the seven degrees of the power of fire, the seven serpents of fire, and later on, the seven serpents of light. Each time we raise the fire within a vertebra of the spine, we have to face great battles against the ego and even the black lodge.
These battles often occur internally. This is why in the Book of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 12, it states: Now the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. ―Matthew 11:12
This is the inner meaning of jihad, مُجَاهِدَة Mujahidah in Arabic, holy war. It does not mean to kill people not of your faith. It means annihilate your ego.
There is a famous story in the Muslim oral tradition where Prophet Muhammad was returning from a battle with his companions after fighting against the Arabians of the time who wanted to kill him and prevent his doctrine from spreading. So he was authorized by the white lodge to defend himself physically because the black lodge was literally waging battles against him and trying to take his life. They call that jihad al-asghar, “the lesser holy war,” and even Samael Aun Weor mentions in books like The Revolution of Beelzebub how even Master Morya in the time of Atlantis put Orhuarpa and many others to the sword, defending themselves against the spread of black magic in Atlantis, in the City of the Seven Golden Doors. We do not condone violence, but self-defense, meaning, in the internal planes we are confronted by demons and they are conjuring us and attacking us, so we defend ourselves. Caput mortem, imperet tibi dominus per vivum et devotum serpentem.
Reciting those prayers like the Conjuration of the Four, the Seven, Invocation of Solomon to protect us, protect us from those forces. But in the teachings of Muhammad, which are greatly adulterated today, he specified that the greater holy war is much necessary. He said to his companions, “Do you know what is greater than the lesser holy war?” And they said, “What, O Prophet?” He said, “War against your desires, yourself,” because if you do not work on yourself, then nothing you do will be of benefit. If we do not work on our own mind, then the black lodge will not try to tempt us, but they will accept us as their brother or sister.
Surah 9 of the Qur’an, Al-Tawbah, “The Return,” (or the Repentance) is very famous within the Muslim tradition primarily because in every Surah of the Qur’an, it begins with: بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the Surah 9, there is no Bismillah. We talked a lot about this in Arcanum 9 previously, but I want to reiterate that Surah 9 is where we battle against the black lodge, which is why it does not begin with the blessing, Bismillah ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim, and Ibn Abbas asked Ali ibn Abi Talib why there is no Bismillah in Surah 9. He says that it begins with the severing of a covenant and a declaration of conflict, the opposite of a state of security or blessings.
This is a very strong Surah for many people to digest because this is the part in the Qur’an that talks about killing the unbelievers, which Muslims have used literally to justify war, physically, to kill people who are not Muslim. This is very sad because the real war is against the ego. 
What is an unbeliever in Arabic? كافِرُون Kafirun, كَفَرَ Kafir. Plural كافِرُون Kafirun. You hear the word كافر Kaf in Arabic there. The Hebrew כ Kaf means “crown,” which you get words like כתר Kether, the crown of glory. But a cave is where the infidels dwell in the interior of the earth, the caves of the infernal spheres of the inverted ספירת sephiroth of the Tree of Life―קליפות Klipoth. The demons dwell within the interior of the earth, within the caves, as كافِرُون Kafirun. كهف Kaf in Arabic means cave.
There is a Surah in the Qur’an called الكهف Al-Kahf, the Cave, which talks about these principles. But the unbelievers who dwell in the caves are our own egos within the 49 dwellings and levels of our own subconsciousness, unconsciousness, infraconsciousness. Even in the myth of Ali Baba and the forty thieves, he goes into a cave in order to find treasure. That treasure is the sexual energy, Cerberus, that you have to extract from the caves and fight off the thieves or the ego. 40 is מ Mem in Hebrew or م Mim (میم) in Arabic, the creative energies. Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness, forty nights. Moses and his people traveled for forty years in the desert before finding the Promised Land because the work with the waters of מ Mem is how we fight against the infidels, our own lust, our own desires. So the black magicians always exert very strong efforts to pull us from the path, and in his book The Divine Science: Logos Mantra Theurgy by Samael Aun Weor, he gives many examples of how the demons try to pull students from the path. I will not go through all the details of that chapter, “Light and Darkness,” and many others that explain these dynamics, but you can study that out on your own [including the course Spiritual Defense]. But he says the primary method by which demons pull students is the intellect, with theories, with beliefs. People are taught that fornication is acceptable. They use the intellect to justify desire, and many of the temples of black magic have very venerable appearances filled with twilight, fatal light, and masters that speak of love and beauty and harmony and religion. They use many terms that we use also in this teaching, which of course are very confusing for people, because they do not understand or discriminate the difference between white and black, positive and negative. So many people, when they have those experiences in the astral plane as they are beginning these studies, enter these temples of sorcery and become very confused, because they see these people have very venerable appearances, robes, beautiful syllogisms, science, handshakes, where a Brotherhood is spoken about very abundantly. But they always advise the student to expel the sexual energy, and that is the key that Samael Aun Weor gives for us to understand that this is the defining characteristic of a demon. Demons do not think they are evil. They feel that they are very awake, and that they are very good people, but they always expel the energies. They do not work with the sexual, creative, Christic seed. They are in the shells of קליפות Klipoth. Samael Aun Weor mentions that our culture today, in America, especially is pulling many people into black magic. Therefore, we should avoid watching films that are very pornographic or lustful or violent. He even talks about not going to movie theaters, but the reason is, he says, those places are very filled with larvae, astral parasites, which people created by watching these films and investing their mental energy in those pictures, which are pornographic. They create all sorts of degenerative fluids and entities with their mind that coagulate collectively in those spheres. Samael Aun Weor mentioned how he used to attend movie theaters until he was confronted by a master of the white lodge where he was watching a film, and they were engaged in a very lustful scene. In the mental plane, he was taken that night and he had to confront that entity that he created in his mind in the mental plane―which he conquered―but then he was warned, “You should not go to these places because we can take your sword, your Kundalini. We can just―snap it―cut you off, because those places are very unhealthy, spiritually speaking.” Many of those who begin, few are those who reach the end. The ninth sphere is positive and negative. In the superior astral dimension in the interior of the earth we find the temple of Melchizedek. In the infernal ninth sphere we find the devolving lost souls who are disintegrating. The members of the black lodge do not consider themselves evil. They feel and believe that entering the interior of the earth to devolve is good. They know it and they welcome it. They know that they are going to be disintegrated and eventually they will return back as an elemental to the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. People can follow what they like. We do not force anything on anyone. We respect free will, which is why Prophet Muhammad in a very short Surah of the Qur’an, كافرون Al-Kafirun, the unbelievers, stated, "Unto you your religion and unto me my religion. I do not follow what you follow, and you do not follow what I follow. You follow what you follow, and I follow on my own." This is a very short Surah but very beautiful. It is teaching about the struggles he had a face with many of the Arabs of his time because in the Middle East, it was very replete with demons, even in the times of Prophet Muhammad, but now even more so unfortunately, which is why the Middle East today is such a mess. This Arcanum 18 is all about witchcraft, the witchcraft of Thessaly, potions, sorcerer's love spells, erotic magic ceremonies, temptations. As I said, the greatest potion the black magicians use is the intellect. They appear very venerable and pleasing and pleasant, but always advise the student to expel the sexual force. I remember in the mental plane many years ago, I remember one demon came to me as I was projecting in the mental plane. He showed me a sign, which intuitively I interpreted and understood. It looked like a bunch of arrows all pointing in many directions, which he was convinced was a symbol showing me that I am going the wrong way. All these arrows are moving in different directions and eventually converged toward the center, but I intuitively knew that he wanted me to awaken down there in קליפות Klipoth, which is convoluted and distorted and inverted. But, I intuitively knew the real meaning when he showed me that and he was being friendly with me and very respectful, but he was using my intellect or trying to convince me that I was wrong. Those are the worst confrontations we can face, the most dangerous. In the astral plane, we face spiritual combat, conjurations, emotional force, when in the mental plane is discussions and polemics and mind, intellect. People are fascinated with novelties. People who have been in these studies for a long time, who have taught many people, have always seen that the greatest weapon the black lodge uses is the intellect. There is a new theory, a new belief system, a new mantra, a new doctrine or school, and a new venerable teacher with a big beard or a yoga suit or tunic or toga, and people get very fascinated with appearances. It is unfortunate, but this is just the reality of our humanity: people fascinated with appearances. 
18 is also 6 + 6 + 6. The beast 666: Indecision within the mind, the heart, and sex. That is the animal ego, animal desire.
In the ninth sphere is also initiation. We achieve initiation by conquering all this in ourselves. We do this by understanding the three forms of tantra, because the ninth sphere is also understood by studying the three forms of alchemy: white, gray, black. In white alchemy, white sexual magic, the sexual energy is never expelled. It is transmuted. Gray tantra, gray sexual alchemy, a couple sometimes conserves, sometimes expels, but this always leads to black sexual magic, which is always the expulsion of the sexual energy, combined with certain concentration exercises and prayers of a demonic type, which invoke demons. That fortifies the “I,” the animal ego. These are the three forms of tantrism. 
Tantra means “continuum,” and in Buddhism it refers to sexual magic. Tantra in Sanskrit means “continuum.” In white sexual alchemy, tantrism, the continuum of the sexual glands, form the holy eight in the spine, the sign of the infinite, the sign of the ninth sphere. Brain, heart, and sex are equilibrated, balanced. But when there is expulsion of the sexual force, the circuitry of God is cut short. It is fried. The wires become burned, and the soul precipitates itself downward, developing the Kundabuffer organ.
The Four Noble Truths of the Initiates
Remember that there were two wives of Adam after Eve: Lilith, Nahemah. But in order to work and escape the 18th Arcanum, we study the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha, of the alchemists. Buddha simply means “awakened one,” and the Four Noble Truths are the teachings of the solar dragon, the Christ, which Samael Aun Weor speaks very abundantly in his book The Aquarian Message, of which we will quote in brief.
So what is a buddha? We state specifically that it is a master of the Fourth Initiation of Major Mysteries, which is the sphere of נצח Netzach. So, מלכות Malkuth, יסוד Yesod, הוד Hod, and נצח Netzach are the lower four ספירת sephiroth of the Tree of Life: the physical body, the vital body, the astral body, the mental body. In order to overcome Arcanum 18: Twilight, to conquer the mind, נצח Netzach, is to be victorious, a buddha. נצח Netzach even has the the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi in the middle, which we'll talk about in brief towards the end. But, a buddha is a master who has raised the four serpents of fire within their lower four bodies. To a degree they have conquered twilight. But of course, there are degrees and degrees by which we achieve that. A buddha is in the process of preparing for the incarnation of Christ through the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries, the Venustic Initiation. Samael Aun Weor explains the Four Noble Truths that can help us to understand the path that leads out of twilight. There are Four Noble Truths that have the power to annihilate the prince of this world.
Conventionally, the Four Noble Truths are: 1) In life there is suffering, 2) suffering has causes, 3) there exists the cessation of the causes of suffering, and then 4) there is a path out. But Samael Aun Weor is explaining a more profound explanation of those four truths:
Whosoever decapitates the “I” can incarnate the Immolated Lamb (Christ). We need to incarnate the Word, the Christ, in order to be saved from the great cataclysm that will occur in these times of the end. To comprehend the Four Truths is urgent. Whosoever walks on the Eightfold Path is converted into a Dragon on the Four Truths." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
So the Eightfold Path of Buddha refers to things like right livelihood, right view, right mindfulness, right effort, and this is very beautifully explained within the Buddhist sutras, the tantras, the teachings of great Buddhist masters. The Eightfold Path in esoterism is more profound and relates to the spinal column, the sphere of the infinite, in which the powers of יסוד Yesod rise―Ida-Pingala, ו Vav and ז Zayin, the two serpents that rise up the spine. When we raise the Kundalini up and achieve initiation, we become a dragon of the Four Truths, especially if we reach the Fourth Initiation of Major Mysteries and become a buddha, a victorious one, one who has conquered their mind. נצח Netzach means “victory.” A buddha is one who has conquered their intellect. But of course, there are levels and levels of development, which are higher, but this is a very profound level to achieve.
Every Dragon on the Four Truths is a Buddha. Listen to me, O Buddhas! You need to incarnate the Christ! The Buddhas can incarnate the Christ only if they renounce Nirvana for the love of this humanity, and also by working with intensity in the flaming forge of Vulcan (sex)." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
This is how we achieve resurrection. This is how we conquer ourselves. This is how we overcome twilight, annihilate the ego, become a buddha, an enlightened one.
Psalm 119
We always explain the Psalms in our lectures. Psalm 119, verses 137-144, all begin with the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi:
צַדִּיק אַתָּה יְהוָה וְיָשָׁר מִשְׁפָּטֶֽיךָ׃
“Oh Jah-Havah, You are righteous, and Your judgments right. You have enjoined your testimonies is exceedingly righteous and faithful. My zeal has eaten me up for my enemies have forgotten your Word.”
It refers to the struggle between white magic and black magic. We are invoking God and really working on ourselves. We have to face temptation. We have enjoyed the testimonies of divinity, meaning we have experiences in meditation and out of the body, in which God comes to us and we see for ourselves what divinity is. “My zeal has eaten me up,” meaning we love God so much that we have to face many battles in the internal planes, because they do not know the Word. "Your word is pure and your servant loves it. I am small and despised; I do not forget your precepts." I believe in Igneous Rose, Samael Aun Weor mentions a chapter about Elijah and the prophets of בעל Baal, the בעלים Baalim, the sorcerers. Out of one prophet in the Middle East, there were many more infidels. I don't remember the exact number. I believe it might have been 350 or so prophets of בעל Baal. There are many prophets of the black lodge who fought against Elijah and many other prophets and made them feel small and despised, hated, confronted. But, “I do not forget your precepts.” No matter how difficult those battles, we do not forget God, because the Being is very mighty and every one of us must face these ordeals patiently. The Mysteries of the Hebrew Letter צ Tzadi
So the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi is the letter of righteousness. It is dual, because in order to overcome or become a saint, one must face temptations, great ordeals, struggles in which one feels that one is going to fail with certainty. But one must be persistent. Tzadi has two forms: צ initial and ץ sofit―first and final. At the end of words, you have an elongated trunk on the left here. This is final sofit: ץ tzadi sofit.
We find the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi in names like צדיק Tzadik, “righteous one,” צדקיאל, Tzadikiel, “the righteousness of אל El (God).” By Zachariel and Tzadkiel-Meleck, be obedient until Elvah, Sanagabril! ―The Conjuration of the Seven
צדיק Tzadik means “righteous” but אל El means “God,” the Righteous God. By זכריאל Zachariel, the angel of Jupiter and the righteous King, מלך Melech, מלכים Malachim, be obedient unto אלוה Elvah.
So who are the righteous ones? These are those people who bear the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the path of the crucifix on their shoulder. The Tree of Knowledge is the cross. It is the wood that we bear on our shoulders, a symbol of the holy alchemy, of a matrimony, which takes us to the Golgotha of the Father, which is a path of supreme suffering and sacrifice, but redemption. The vertical beam is the phallus. The horizontal beam is the uterus.
So what is Golgotha? It means “place of the skull.” Jesus carried his cross up the mountain to the place of the skull, meaning, raising the power of יסוד Yesod to his brain. Of course, it is very painful process because we have a lot of ego, a lot of suffering involved. צ Tzadi represents precisely the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, עץ הדעת טוב ורע otz ha-da'ath tob vay ra. As we stated, עץ החיים otz chaim is the Tree of Lives. עץ Otz or tree is ע Ayin- צ Tzadi. ע Ayin is the letter relating to the eyes, sight, spiritual vision, and צ Tzadi is the cross. So it is the power of דעת Da’ath because even דעת Da’ath begins with ד Daleth, is the middle with ע Ayin and ends in ת Tav: the doorway that leads to perception, to the Seal of God, is what דעת Da’ath means, Gnosis. But צ Tzadi is the cross which we bear by learning to meditate. We work with ע Ayin. We awaken our perception through meditation, but then through the work of that sexual energy, we raise the cross from sex to the mind. צ Tzadi is mentioned in the Zohar, the greatest work of kabbalah our humanity has known. In the creation myth of the Bible, the Zohar states that צ Tzadi and many other letters of the kabbalah approached יהוה Iod-Havah to ask to create the world, to begin the Book of Bereshit (Genesis). Of course, bet begins the Bible and ב Beth receives that blessing, but all the letters of the Torah, the tarot, the 22 arcana, approached divinity and asked to create the world: The letter צ (tzadi) entered. She said to Him, “Master of the world, may it please You to create the world by me, for צדיקים (tsaddiqim), the righteous, are sealed by me, and You who are called צדיק (Tsaddiq), Righteous, are signified by me, as it is written: For יהוה (YHVH) is צדיק (tsaddiq)―loving righteousness (Psalms 11:7). It is fitting to create the world by me!”
What does it mean to not present the world a pretext? Do not give humanity a reason to persecute you by being a righteous one. Some people in this movement who are working in initiation become צדיקים Tzadikim, meaning, they create solar bodies. They become righteous people. But then they go around bragging about their righteousness to humanity. “I am a righteous person. I am the master so-and-so. I am a great initiate. Join my group and you will be saved.” Do not give the world a pretext to judge you, to condemn you, because צ Tzadi, while it makes one righteous, can also be dualistic. Pride is before the fall.
Many people in our movement become too vain, mystically speaking. They are filled with mystical pride. So, how is it that one does not provide the world a pretext? How so? She is נ (nun) (the Hebrew letter of Arcanum 14: Temperance)… ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I., p. 13
נ Nun is the sexual energy, the sperm or the ovum. י Iod comes from the name יהוה Iod-Havah. If you look at the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi, it literally looks like a נ Nun with a transposed י Iod: נ Nun on an angle here and י Iod above.
You also can see the Hebrew letter ז Zayin and ו Vav involved. So why is צ Tzadi the Tree of Life? It has ו Vav and ז Zayin in it―man and woman, male-female. ו Vav is the man. ז Zayin is the woman, or עד Od and עבד Obd, male-female, Adam-Eve, Ida-Pingala in the spine. The two energetic serpent currents that rise from sex to the brain are ו Vav and ז Zayin, which you find in צ Tzadi, calligraphically speaking. They are hidden within the calligraphy here. So נ Nun and י Iod are in this letter. נ Nun is the seed and י Iod is also the seed. י (Yod) from the name of the holy covenant comes and rides on her, is united with her. This is the mystery: When the blessed Holy One created Adam, He created him with two faces. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I., p. 13
So each י Iod is like a face and both י Iods face one direction, but they are actually not facing each other. That can refer to the duality of Lilith and Nahemah, inversion, the infrasexuals, but also between the solar and the lunar forces that are battling each other, good and evil, light and darkness. The Zohar gives some other verses here too about how this י Iod is not facing the opposite way or facing downward or facing upward, but facing opposite, because men and women are opposites. ו Vav-ז Zayin, Adam-Eve, the opposites work together to work with the cross, which is צ Tzadi, the cross of the צדיקים Tzadikim (righteous ones).
So, צ Tzadi was created with two faces, meaning that force of righteousness can be very heavenly or could be demonic. They were not turned face to face like this: two י Iods facing each other. It looked upward like this facing up. It looked downward like this, and if you look at some of the calligraphy of the word צ Tzadi, the י Iod can be looked facing different directions, meaning the face is not uniform, not integral, not integrated, and that is precisely the nature of the ego. There is no integration there, but the ego has many faces and is dualistic and negative and people do not see eye-to-eye because of the ego, the mind. The blessed Holy One said to her, “Turn back, for I intend to split you and transfigure you face-to-face, but you will arise elsewhere.” She left His presence and departed. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I., p. 13
“Turn back from the lunar path, for I tend to split you and transfigure you face to face,” because when husband and wife are working together, they are transfigured. A fire illuminates them, and they will arise elsewhere, meaning, only through the death of the ego can they fully achieve perfection.
We develop the Hebrew letter to צדיק Tzadik, צ Tzadi, by overcoming twilight. We also develop the image of God by working with צ Tzadi because the Hebrew word for image is צלם Tzalem: צ Tzadi- ל Lamed- מ Mem (or final ם Mem). So what does it mean to develop the image of God? To be an Adam Christ? People in these times think they are made into the image of God, but what they have is ego and God did not create the ego. We did. So how do we work with the image of God? By working with our צלם Tzalem. The image of God is contained within our sexual seed, because צ Tzadi is נ Nun, י Iod, ו Vav, ז Zayin, all those letters combined, man and woman working with their seed. As it says in the Book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 17: For therein is the righteousness that צלם Tzalem of God revealed from faith to faith. ―Romans 1:17
From Adam to Eve, between husband and wife, because that is how they generate true faith, by working with the power of the solar energies. As it is written, “the righteous shall live by faith.” So we always have to battle this twilight. This is how we prove ourselves.
צ Tzadi: The Wisdom of the Trees of Life and Knowledge
The letter צ Tzadi relates to the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 2, this duality of light and darkness. We know from the Book of Genesis that it is a work of kabbalah and alchemy, which have to be interpreted through the Hebrew letters and the Zohar. We find the verse “Ans the Earth was formless and void (תהו ובהו Tohu va-Bohu) and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
The way that we overcome the formlessness in the mind, in the void of our own consciousness, is by developing fire and light. In the following verses, "and the Lord said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” So as I said, צ Tzadi is the cross. It even looks like a cross with two beams crossing each other. It reminds us of ע Ayin as well. ע Ayin has a very similar structure to צ Tzadi, which is why they follow so closely together in the sequence of arcana.
What does it mean to work with the cross? It is to work with Christ. יֵשׁוּעַ Yehoshua, Son of נ Nun in the Bible, the Old Testament, the Book of Joshua. It reminds us of יהשוה Yeshua, which is Christ. Even Samael Aun Weor stated that the Old Testament figure of Joshua was Jesus, the reincarnation of Christ who was preparing to perform his mission in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Yehoshua, Son of נ Nun. We are the son or children of the sperm or ovum, the two י Iods on the top of צ Tzadi. When we carry נ Nun, the seminal seed, and י Iod up the spine, our ו Vav, we create ז Zayin, the sword of the Kundalini. This is how we devote fire and light, by extracting the fire from the darkness, twilight. We do this by conquering the secret enemy: Judas, Pilate, Caiaphas―meditating on the death of desire, hatred, pride, vanity, etc. This is the Tree of Knowledge upon which we are crucified, upon which we crucify the mind. It is interesting that even the Hebrew word יסוד Yesod begins with י Iod, has ס Samech in the middle, ו Vav, ד Daleth. We explained that ס Samech is the serpent, the 15th letter of the Hebrew kabbalah, the serpentine power of Kundalini or Kundabuffer, depending on how we use that force. ס Samech can rise up the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil if we don't eat the forbidden fruit, do not give in to desire. This is how we become Wizards of עץ Otz, Wizards of Oz, wizards of the tree, the Magician. But to get there, you got to follow the yellow brick road, your spinal column. That is how you become a magician. The Wizard of Oz is a very beautiful teaching. I had a experience about these principles many years ago, which I will relate. I woke up on the astral plane, and I was summoned by my inner Being. He appeared to me in the form of the Tree of Life, and I looked at the ספירת sephiroth and I counted 18. He was showing me that there is a duality there between heaven and hell. He was showing me the struggle with my own mind. He said to me in very simple words, His voice emanated from the Tree of Life much in the same way that Moses talked to a burning bush. He said, “You must become Benedictine.” I didn't know at first, even though I have studied literature and English language for a long time, I didn't really know the full meaning of that word yet. I looked it up when I woke up. It means “to be purified, to be blessed.” You wish to become holy, a צדיק Tzadik? You must annihilate the ego and face the infidels. He was warning me, and this was my own Wizard of Oz, the wizard of my own Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge. 1 + 8 relates to Arcanum 1: The Magician and Arcanum 8: Justice. Together they make the ninth sphere, יסוד Yesod. Samael Aun Weor explains in Tarot and Kabbalah that in order to become a magician, we have to follow four precepts:
We do it by working patiently with our spinal column and the Eightfold Path of the Buddha. The Magician, Arcanum 1, and the Eightfold Path of Arcanum 8 is 18. That is how you overcome twilight. Even the word נצח Netzach as I said before has צ Tzadi in the middle. נ Nun צ Tzadi, ח Chet―victory. It is in the mind where we have to battle against twilight. That is where we face the worst demons, as I explained. When you conquer your mind, you become a buddha, a righteous one. The Hebrew letter צ Tzadi is the cross of the righteous. Crucifixion occurred in the New Testament between the sixth and the ninth hour. 6 + 9 is 15, Arcanum 15: Passion, the devil, the work with the serpent, ס Samech. When we annihilate the ego and become righteous beings through the cross, צדיקים Tzadikim, we can become צבאות Sabaoth. צבאות Sabaoth is the Lord of Hosts: יהוה צבאות Iod-Chavah Sabaoth. It begins with צ Tzadi. Those are all the angels who have fully perfected the Tree of Knowledge in themselves. Zoharic Commentary on צ Tzadi and Genesis
I would like to relate to a teaching from the Zohar now, which explains this whole concept of צ Tzadi in relation to the Book of Genesis.
The earth was תהו ובהו (tohu va-bohu), chaos (formless) and void (Genesis 1:2). Was, precisely: previously. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 118
The earth was formless and void before we worked in alchemy, where we give form to the solar bodies, the earth and the heavens (שמים shamayim). What does it mean to be formless and void? It means to not have solar bodies, to be empty of real spiritual depth, and chaos, to be filled ego.
Snow in water. Through the potency of snow and water emerged slime. Blazing fire struck it, refuse came to be, and תהו (tohu), chaos, was produced―abode of slime, nest of refuse... ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 118
So what is snow, esoterically speaking? It means chastity, the cold purity of the spirit, the sexual, purified energies. When mixed with the water of our own degenerated sexuality at this point, it becomes slime. Literally, the slime is the sexual matter, whether from man or woman, the sexual fluids. When the couple unites, blazing fire, it strikes it. The fires become engaged, but if the couple is filled with lust, refuse came to be. They create chaos in their minds through desire. That is the nest of refuse, of degeneration.
…ובהו (Va-vohu), And void―sifting sifted from refuse, settling upon it. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 118
So the mind is a void. It is filled with emptiness or darkness.
חשך (Ḥoshekh), Darkness―mystery of blazing fire. That darkness covers tohu, over the refuse, and thereby it is empowered. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
So what is that dark fire? What is that twilight? It is darkness, but it is fire. The sexual energy is dualistic. It is in darkness, the darkness of our body, but it is the fire that can illuminate us. But, that energy becomes perverted and degenerated through fornication. That is how the refuse, the ego, the slime, the mind, is fortified, empowered.
ורוח אלוהים (Ve-ruaḥ Elohim) And a wind of God―רוח אקודש (Ruaḥ Qudsha), Holy Spirit, emerging from the living God, hovering over the face of the waters… ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
So the רוח אלוהים Ruach Elohim hovering over the face of the waters is our own spirit. When the couple is united, they are controlling their breath and their breathing through prayer and mantra. That is the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of the sexual union and transmuting the waters into wine, transmuting the fire or the dark fire into light, twilight into development.
Once this wind blew, one fine film clarified from that refuse, like filthy froth flying off, clarified, refined again and again, till that filth has left lacking any filth at all. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
What is interesting is that this filth is the ego. Little by little, the couple gains more chastity. In the beginning, they have to fight against a lot of desire, but by cooperating and working again and again and meditating on the death of lust, the sacrament of union becomes pure. The refuse is purified through the breathing, א Aleph, the breath, the power of כתר Kether.
As Samael Aun Weor stated in the lecture "Matrimony, Divorce, and Tantrism": Bake and rebake and rebake your clay and your water again, so that when your clay returns to the clay and your water evaporates, only your Amphora of Salvation remains. In other words, only your resplendent and sparkling soul remains in the hands of your inner God. ―Samael Aun Weor. “Matrimony, Divorce, and Tantrism”
So what is that clay? It is the mind, but there are hidden archetypes there that are very beautiful. We have to craft the perfect chalice of God, which is the solar bodies, so that we can receive the wine of knowledge. You cannot drink old wine in new wineskins. You have to create new wineskins, a new chalice, to receive that wisdom. You create it through alchemy, the solar bodies. So the couple has to work daily if that is their temperament in alchemy, to purify the mind.
So was tohu (formlessness) clarified and refined, from it emerging a great, mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks (1 Kings 19:11). ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
This is from the Book of Kings chapter 19, verse 11, which is the one scene by Elijah. So there is another verse from the Old Testament in which Elijah had a vision. I'll relate that to you from the Book of Kings, chapter 19, verses 11 through 12, which relate to these concepts of the formlessness and voidness in the mind and the Hebrew letter צ Tzadi.
Go out and stand on the mountain before יהוה Jehovah. Behold, יהוה Jehovah was passing by. A great, mighty wind splitting mountains and shattering rocks before יהוה Jehovah. יהוה Jehovah was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake. יהוה Jehovah was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire. יהוה Jehovah was not in the fire. After the fire, the sound of sheer silence. ―Kings 19:11-12
This is an alchemical teaching. What is that wind that Elijah sees? He is symbolizing alchemy, a marriage, union. The couple is united sexually. Filled with love, they are transmuting the waters through their breath, a great wind, the רוח אלהים Ruach Elohim, because when you pray with mantras in the sexual act, you purify the mind and annihilate the ego if you fully comprehended a certain defect.
This wind shatters mountains and shatters rocks, the rock of יסוד Yesod, so that the waters of life split and enter and flow, so there is transmutation, but יהוה Jehovah is not in the wind, not in the breath entirely. Then there is an earthquake, but יהוה Jehovah was not in the earthquake. What does it mean to be in an earthquake? Obviously, when a couple is united, the couple trembles with love, with ecstasy. The body quakes with love, with divine union, with beauty, with love, but יהוה Jehovah is not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire, the sexual fire, the sexual energy. But יהוה Jehovah is not in the fire. But after the fire, after transmuting that energy, one goes deeper in meditation in the sexual act even, in samadhi, and achieves sheer silence. That is the Voice of the Silence, the Being, who manifests in all the elements: the breath, the fire, the earth. But if you go really deep and profoundly in yourself, you will see that divinity is very high, but manifests in different ways, profound levels and levels and levels of attainment. So this is the mystery of תהו ובהו Tohu va-Bohu, formlessness and voidness. Bohu was clarified and refined (meaning the darkness, the voidness of the mind is clarified, is purified, refined with meditation) from it emerging an earthquake, as is written: After the wind―an earthquake. Darkness (of the mind) clarified, embracing fire within its mystery, as is written: After the earthquake―fire. Wind clarified, and embraced in its mystery was the sound of sheer silence. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
When the couple is kissing, obviously their breaths, their speech becomes impassioned, inflamed, and they tremble with ecstasy. The darkness is clarified through the sexual union in which the fire is generated, when the couple sexually unites, and then after the earthquake, the trembling of divine union, the fire, and then they attain the sound of sheer silence, meditation, profound ecstasy, tantra.
Tohu―a colorless, formless realm, not embraced by the mystery of form. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I. p, 119
So what is this colorless formless realm? The mind is formless and void. In the beginning, we look at our mind. We see that there is all this chaos: churning, thoughts, memories, daydreams, passions, worries, anxieties, fears, which have no grounding.
Now within form―as one contemplates it, no form at all. Everything has a garment in which to be clothed, except for this: though appearing upon it, it does not exist at all, never did. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 119
This is why in profound Buddhist meditation, Gnostic meditation, we go into the mind and see that it is groundless. It is empty, formless. But something profound and alchemical is related here with בהו Bohu.
Bohu―this has shape and form (the void has shape and form): stones sunk within the shell of tohu (formlessness), emerging from that shell in which they are sunk, conveying benefit to the world. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
So, anytime there is a reference to stone, it is the power of יסוד Yesod, the sexual energy, which is sunk within the shell of תהו Tohu. So within the formlessness of your mind, within the shells of all the egos, is the stone of יסוד Yesod, the seed that you have to extract. So these shells are sunk within the mud of the abyss, but have to be pulled out.
Through the form of a garment they convey benefit from above to below, ascending from below to above. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
So how do you create the garments of the soul, the solar bodies? By taking the Son of Man, the energies of Christ, which come from above, they descend from above to below, and then through transmutation, raise it from below to above. There is a statement in the New Testament when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, that no one can ascend up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And just as Moses raised the serpent upon the staff in the wilderness, (that is צ Tzadi, the Tree of Knowledge), so must the Son of Man be lifted up (Kundalini, fire, serpents of light as well―John 3:13-14).
So they are hollow and moist (these stones), suspended in the air―sometimes suspended in the air, sometimes concealed on a cloudy day, generating water from the abyss to nourish tohu… ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
What does it mean that these stones are suspended in the air? When you are working in transmutation, you are raising the stone up your spine, symbolically speaking. To work with your stones is literally to work with the testicles or the ovaries, to transmute those forces. Sometimes that energy is concealed on a cloudy day, meaning you look in the astral plane, you ask for help, they show you the atmosphere. If it is a cloudy sky, it means there is obscuration in the mind. If it is clear, it means there is ascension. So these stones generate water from the abyss to nourish תהו Tohu, formlessness, the darkness of the mind. So those waters can nourish our ego, or they can nourish our soul if we know how to steal the fire from the devil.
…for then frivolity and folly prevail as tohu spreads throughout the world. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
When people worship the ego and the formlessness in the mind, lacking any genuine spiritual depth, frivolity and folly prevail.
Darkness is black fire (or we can say twilight)… ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
The sexual energy is darkness in the beginning. It is black but becomes purified when we work in a marriage.
…potent in color; red fire, potent in appearance; green fire, potent in shape; white fire, embracing all. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
Samael Aun Weor explains that this fire has to be purified. First it is black, then it is white, and then it is gold, representing the three Magi who visited the birth of Jesus. But also, you have green fire which is a reference to the Spirit, if you read a book called Treatise of Sexual Alchemy by Samael Aun Weor (which Glorian Publishing as available as an e-book).
So the fire must be purified. We must overcome twilight. Darkness, most powerful fire, empowers tohu (because that energy can empower our ego or our soul). Darkness is fire, but not dark fire until it empowers tohu. This is the mystery of: His eyes were too dim to see, and he called Esau (Genesis 27:1). ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
So what does it mean that his eyes are too dim to see? This is a reference to Isaac speaking to Jacob in the myth of Esau. Abraham had Isaac. Isaac begot Jacob and Esau. Esau was the firstborn of Isaac. He had the birthright of receiving all the benefits from Isaac, but Jacob was jealous and wanted to receive the blessings from his father, and therefore, wore furs on his arms and his body in order to imitate Esau. So his father who was blind, too dim to see, would feel the furs on his body and think that he was Esau and then bless him, which he did.
Esau is a reference to the ego, the animal desire, which is hairy, a symbol of animality. But Jacob is תפארת Tiphereth, the human soul. Isaac is גבורה Geburah, the divine soul who gives blessings to תפארת Tiphereth, the human soul. What does it mean that his eyes were too dim and he called Esau? In the beginning our spiritual sight is very dim. We do not see things clearly. The earth is formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. We need to see with developing our spiritual sight by working with the Tree of Knowledge, עץ הדעת טוב ורע otz ha-da'ath tob vay ra. Darkness―face of evil, for he greeted evil with a friendly face. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
These are the two י Iods of צ Tzadi, two faces, because from צ Tzadi can emerge light or darkness.
Then it is called darkness, for it settles upon it, empowering it. This is the mystery of Darkness over the face of the abyss (Genesis 1:2). רוח (Ruaḥ), Wind, is a voice hovering over bohu, (a voidness) empowering and conducting it with whatever it is needed. This is the mystery of: The voice of YHWH is upon the waters (Psalms 29:3)... ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
Similarly, the wind of God hovering over the face of the waters because with mantras and prayer and breathing, we control the energy.
…stones sunk in the abyss, from which water issues. So what is called face, face of the abyss. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
The water issues from the stone of יסוד Yesod, but it is in the abyss, because we are filled with desire. But if you use the wind, you can elevate the stone so those stones hover and rise up, symbolically speaking, to your mind, to your heart, the power of your stones, the ovaries, or testicles.
The wind conducts and empowers that face, face of the waters, each one receiving what it needs. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 120
So, two faces: face, face of the abyss; two י Iods, צ Tzadi. You overcome twilight by working with צ Tzadi, the Tree of Knowledge. This is how we transform ourselves.
Tohu―upon it rest the name שדי (Shaddai). ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
אל שׁדי El Shaddai, the power of יסוד Yesod. שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai is the Almighty Living God, the name of God in יסוד Yesod on the Tree of Life. So that is the sexual energy. The Almighty Living God is how we create, spiritually speaking. That is how we work with formlessness. You give form to your soul by working with אל שׁדי El Shaddai, the power of the Holy Spirit.
Bohu (voidness)―upon it rests the name צבאות (Tseva’ot), Hosts. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
So what is another name for צבאות Sabaoth, Army of the Voice? All the Angels and אלהים Elohim that achieved self-realization, resurrection, and ascension. They are now children of the Void. They are entering the Absolute. That is one level of meaning. We become angels by working and overcoming the voidness of our mind.
Darkness―upon it rest the name אלהים (Elohim). ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
We explained many times previously that darkness relates to the left pillar of the Tree of Life. The left pillar relates to אלהים Elohim and בינה Binah is the name יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim. גבורה Geburah is is the name אלהים גיבור Elohim Gibor. The name הוד Hod is אלהים צבאות Elohim Sabaoth, the sacred names of God in those spheres. אל El is God. אלה Eloah is goddess. י Iod-מ Mem is masculine plural. אלהים Elohim is man and woman united sexually. You overcome darkness in a matrimony. That is why darkness upon it rests the name אלהים Elohim. "Let there be light," said אלהים Elohim, “and there was light,” male-female, creating sexually.
Wind―upon it rests the name יהוה (YHVH). A great, mighty wind, splitting mountains and rocks. YHVH was not in the wind (Kings 19:11). This name was not in it. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
What is God, we ask? Where is God when we are practicing alchemy? It is a presence. As Jesus said, "the spirit of God goeth where it listeth, but you know not the direction or the sound of where it comes from” (John 3:8).
This name was not in it, for Shaddai controls it (the wind) through the mystery of tohu. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
Because when you are controlling your breath, you are working with אל שׁדי El Shaddai.
After the wind, an earthquake; YHVH was not in the earthquake―for the name צבאות Tseva’ot controls it through the mystery of bohu. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
The power of the Army of the Voice, the Logos, the divine angels, created the mystery of the formlessness within divine sexual union.
So bohu is called earthquake, for it does not exist without quaking. After the earthquake, fire; YHVH was not in the fire―for the name אלהים Elohim controls it, from the side of darkness. After the fire, the sound of sheer silence―here is found the name YHVH. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
So again, the earthquake is, when couples are united and they feel inspired by love, they quake with longing and spiritual desire, we can say, with love. But even as a couple is united, they have to remember God, which is the Voice of the Silence, their inner Spirit. God is not in the fire, is in the pleasant sensations of sexual union, nor is it in quaking of the couple, nor in the wind, the mantras, the breath. But God is beyond all that and behind it, and governs all, if the couple is concentrated in themselves when they are working with the formlessness of their mind and the void.
Here are four sections constituting well-known sections of the limbs of the body, numbering four (י Iod, ה Hei, ו Vav, ה Hei: man-woman, phallus-uterus), numbering twelve (because יהוה Jehovah is mentioned 3 times―Arcanum 12 is the Apostolate, the arcanum of sexual alchemy). Here is the engraved name of twelve letters transmitted to Elijah in the cave. ―Zohar, Pritzker Volume I, p. 121
So Elijah refers El-IAO: אל El י Yod, ה Hei, ו Vau. I-A-O, the supreme mantras of sexual magic. When the couple is working with their Tree of Knowledge, their צ Tzadi, they become righteous ones, צדיקים Tzadikim. In that way, they progress. They create light and no longer is the earth formless and void, but there is light within the couple.
So to conclude, Samael Aun Weor mentions that we defeat Satan, the ego, within sex, within holy union, and through meditation. The eyes are the window of the soul. We must not look at others with lustful desire. This is temptation and adultery. We always must defend ourselves with the Conjurations of the Four and the Seven. Do you have any questions? Questions and Answers
Question: Is it advisable for beginners who haven't yet mastered their energies to perform these types of practices at the hour of Venus?
Instructor: I would say for beginners, it is always best if the individuals learn to transmute individually first. This has been the initial trend of practitioners in this science for many millennia. Question: But I mean that, 4 a.m., should they be doing those types of practices? Instructor: They can when they are ready, but beginners, I would say, when the couple works in alchemy, they should basically prepare and work with their own rhythm in the beginning. Question: I just mean like, you were talking about the recitation at 4 a.m., that it is the hour of Lucifer-Venus, right? So if there is someone who hasn't fully mastered their energies and then they are doing these practices, not alchemy, but just practices at 4 a.m., could it be dangerous for them if they potentially invoke these strong entities who can deter them if they don't have control over themselves? Instructor: Right, and I would say beginner should learn to prepare themselves for that kind of practice, because it takes a lot of discipline. But there will have to come a time in which practitioners need to face themselves. So eventually we have to have that conflict and it is never an easy thing. But of course, if you feel that you don't want to practice that early in the beginning, that is good, because you may not feel ready for facing what you have to face. But with enough discipline, we learn to meditate at that hour easily. But yeah, as we are saying, for beginning practitioners even working in alchemy, at that hour is really powerful. But the couple has to be trained. I was going to mention that there are many people in the movement who basically are married and can begin work with alchemy, but they never even trained themselves in the beginning with transmutation as a bachelor. I always advise those students before really connecting, again, and really working in that way, it is good to train individually as much as possible, because couples have been together for a long time and are used to procreating in the animal way and expelling the energies. They have a very difficult time if they connect, because their body, the vital winds, are not flowing out to in, but in to out. Therefore, it is very difficult for them. But people who have been training for years on their own and then they get married, it is very quick for them―very easy―because they have established that discipline already. They have the foundation set. But it is not easy to say this for people who are already married who want to enter the science, and they want to practice alchemy. But it may be good to slow down in order to hasten. Comment: During the meditation you mentioned inverted ספירת sephiroth, which kind of moved me. I never looked at it that way nor had prior thoughts about that. But that’s a pretty good connection. Instructor: Yeah, so the Tree of Life has its shadow which is קליפות Klipoth, hell. Nine heavens, nine hells. The heavens of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn Uranus, Neptune. Those heavens, those forces, when they are not returned back to the light, they descend down into the nine interior layers of the earth. The Muslims call that the Tree of Zaqqum, the tree of death. It is a little tree in the Middle East in which the leaves are so bitter to the taste that it is inedible, which became a symbol for hell. The inhabitants of hell eat from the Tree of Zaqqum, which are all those forces devolving in the interior of the Earth. It is bitter to them, very painful. But there are nine inverted ספירת sephiroth, because there are nine hells according to Dante. In order to reach the nine heavens as he taught in his Purgatorio and Paradiso, they have to descend down into hell first. In order to ascend, you have to descend. If you wish to be exalted, you must be humiliated through trials and ordeals. That is how we become צדיקים Tzadikim, righteous ones.
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