And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was [is] the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, "Blessed be Abram to the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." And he gave him tithe from all. —Genesis 14:18-20

The story of Moses and his master, Melchizedek, is related in the Koran. It should be read by every searcher of Truth and every occult student, for it teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven can only be taken by energy. ―M., The Lord God of Truth Within

And [Moses] found a servant [Khidr] from among Our servants to whom we had given mercy from us and had taught him from Us a certain knowledge [marifah in Arabic, gnosis in Greek, da'ath in Hebrew, experiential knowledge from the awakened consciousness].

Moses said to him, “May I follow you on the condition that you teach me from what you have been taught of sound judgment?”

He [Khidr, Melchizedek] said, "Indeed, with me you will never be able to have patience [because his level of being is superior and more radical, revolutionary]. And how can you have patience for what you do not encompass in knowledge?" ―Surah Al-Kahf, "The Cave," verses 65-68

Jesus, — that is Aberamentho, — said: “Since indeed the father of my father, — that is Yew,— is the foreminder of all the rulers, Gods and powers who have arisen out of the matter of the Light of the Treasury, and Zorokothora Melchisedec is the envoy to all the lights which are purified in the rulers, leading them into the Treasury of the Light, — these two alone are the great Lights, and their ordinance is that they down go to the rulers and purify them, and that Zorokothora Melchisedec carrieth away the purification of the lights which they have purified in the rulers and leadeth them into the Treasury of the Light, — when the cipher and the time of their ordinance cometh, that they go down to the rulers and oppress and constrain them, carrying away the purification from the rulers.” ―The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

Rabbi Ḥizkiyah opened, "Like a rose among thorns, so is my beloved among the maidens (Song of Songs 2:2). Who is a rose? Assembly of Israel (תפארת Tiphereth, the human soul, governed astrologically by Venus and the Sun). For there is a rose, and then there is a rose! Just as a rose among thorns is colored red and white, so Assembly of Israel includes judgment and compassion. Just as a rose has thirteen petals, so Assembly of Israel has thirteen qualities of compassion surrounding Her on every side. Similarly, from the moment אלהים (Elohim), God, is mentioned, it generates thirteen words to surround Assembly of Israel and protect Her; then it is mentioned again. Why again? To produce five sturdy leaves surrounding the rose. These five are called Salvation; they are five gates. Concerning this mystery, it is written: I raised the cup of salvation (Psalms 116:13). This is the cup of blessing, which should rest on five fingers—and no more—like the rose, sitting a five sturdy leaves, paradigm of the five fingers (the Gnostic pentagram or upright spiritual master). This rose is the cup of blessing." ―Zohar

The practice to ask for help from Melchisedec is quite simple. It is performed on any Saturday the thirteenth, at the thirteenth hour (one o’clock). Lie face down (on your stomach or solar plexus). You will pray and meditate for one hour, so adopt a posture that will allow you to be fully relaxed for that time. You can use a pillows or cushion as needed. You can rest your head on your hands or arms. Some students prefer to adopt the shape of a star with arms and legs out. As Samael Aun Weor emphasized, the main feature of our posture is that we should be deeply relaxed, capable of totally forgetting about the physical body. If you are distracted by your posture, you will not be able to concentrate effectively. 

Close your eyes and pray to your inner Being, asking to go to the temple of Melchisedec for help. Visualize this happening. The temple is in the center of the Earth. Relax, pray, concentrate, and visualize this process. Imagine talking to him. Generally, students sustain this prayer for the entire hour, meditating throughout. 

​Call upon the help of Melchisedec to learn about yourself. Do not call upon Melchisedec and ask him to help you get a new car, or to get a new house, because people do that, and that is not the point of the practice. The point of the practice is to get help from Melchisedec to learn about your own Earth (your self) and to learn about your relationship to his Earth, this planet, and to change. My personal recommendation is to ask for help with your ego and your karma, since they are the root of suffering. 

Most importantly, one must have faith and sincere longing for inner change.

Learn how to contact the Lord Melchizedek:

​Who or what can guarantee that concept and reality are exactly the same thing?

Concept is one thing and reality is another.

There is a tendency to overestimate our own concepts. It is almost impossible for reality to equal concept. Nevertheless, the mind, hypnotized by its very own concepts, always presumes that concept and reality are the same.

Any psychological process that is correctly structured using precise logic is opposed by a different one, strongly developed with similar or superior logic.  Then what?

Two severely disciplined minds confined by ironclad intellectual structures argue with one another.  They debate, in dispute over this or that fact of reality.  Each believes its own concept to be exact and the other to be false.  Which is right?  Who can honestly guarantee either case?  Which one shows that concept and reality are the same?

Unquestionably, each mind is a world of its own.  In each and every one of us lies a kind of pretentious, dictatorial dogmatism that wants to make us believe in the absolute equality of concept and reality.

Nothing can guarantee absolute equality between concept and reality no matter how strong the structures of a line of reasoning might be.

Those who confine themselves to any logistical intellectual procedure are always inclined to make the reality of phenomena and the devised concepts agree.  However, this is only the result of hallucinatory reasoning.

Being open to what is new is a difficult gift for the traditionalist. Unfortunately, people want to discover and discern their own prejudices, ideas, preconceptions, opinions, and theories in all natural phenomena. No one knows how to be receptive, to see what is new with a clear and spontaneous mind.

Let the phenomena itself speak to the sage; this should be logical. Unfortunately, sages of this day and age do not know how to view phenomena. They only want to see in them the confirmation of all their preconceptions.

Although it seems incredible, modern scientists know nothing about natural phenomena.

When we only perceive our own concepts in natural phenomena, surely, we are not seeing the phenomena itself but only our concepts.

Nevertheless, foolish scientists, amazed by their fascinating intellect, stupidly believe each of their concepts to be absolutely equal to this or that observed phenomenon, when the reality is different.

We do not deny that all those who are locked into this or that logistical procedure reject our assertions. Undoubtedly, the pontifical and dogmatic condition of the intellect would never be able to accept that any properly conceived concept does not coincide exactly with reality.

As soon as the mind observes any phenomenon through the senses, it rushes to immediately label that phenomenon with this or that scientific term. Unquestionably, this serves only as a patch to cover its own ignorance.

The mind does not really know how to be receptive to what is new. However, it does know how to invent highly complicated terminology with which it tries to classify—in a self-deceiving way—that of which it is surely ignorant.

Speaking now in a Socratic sense, we will say that not only is the mind ignorant, but even worse, it is ignorant of its ignorance.

The modern mind is terribly superficial.  We have specialized in inventing extremely difficult terms to hide our own ignorance.

There are two types of science. The first is nothing more than a compost heap of subjective theories that abound out there; the second is the pure science of the great illuminati: the objective science of the Being.

Undoubtedly, it is not possible to penetrate the amphitheater of cosmic science without first dying within ourselves.

We must disintegrate all those undesirable elements that we carry within and which together form the “I” of psychology.

As long as the me, myself—our own subjective concepts and theories—continues to bottle up the superlative consciousness of the Being, it is absolutely impossible to directly comprehend the harsh reality of natural phenomena within us.

The Angel of Death has the key to nature’s laboratory in his right hand. We can learn very little from the phenomenon of birth, but from death we can learn everything.

The unprofaned temple of pure science is found in the depths of the dark sepulcher.  

If the seed does not die, the plant is not born. Only with death comes forth what is new.

When the ego dies, the consciousness awakens to see the reality of all of Nature’s phenomena in and of themselves.

The consciousness knows that which it directly experiences for itself, the naked reality of life beyond the body, the affections, and the mind. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion: Concept and Reality

Begin Your Journey Beyond Beliefs:

Meditation Essentials

The mind believes, the mind that does not believe, the mind that doubts, is an ignorant mind. The path of wisdom does not rely on believing, not believing, or doubting. The path of wisdom consists of inquiring, analyzing, meditating, and experiencing. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

I do not want henchmen nor followers, only imitators of my example. I have not come to form any sect, or one more belief, nor am I interested in the schools of today, or the particular beliefs of anyone! ―Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: Zodiacal Course

Resources for Further Study

Is Sexual Magic Repressive?

Meditation Essentials

Why Are the Teachings on Chastity So Severe?

​The first portion of this name is Samech Mem [סם].

Sam [סם] (Samech + Mem): bitter beverage, drug, poison, toxin, medicine, potion; perfume

The name סמאל Samael means "the medicine of God, the perfume of God, the poison of God, the drug of God, the bitter beverage of God." All of these are accurate translations. [...]
 
When we acquire real knowledge, for example, just hearing about this teaching, it can taste bitter; it can taste intense; it can shock us. That knowledge is the essence of this angel, Samael. It is "a bitter beverage" to the ego. It is "poison" to the ego, but it is the "potion" or "perfume of God" that illuminates the soul. Thus when we encounter γνῶσις gnosis or דעת‎ Da'ath (Hebrew for knowledge) we enter into a great conflict, psychologically. I am talking about real knowledge, the esoteric knowledge, not just beliefs. When you experience this knowledge, and receive your own knowledge from that experience, you feel a great shock to the depth of your soul; most people run away because it is intense and a poison to the ego: it terrifies the ego, because that Angel Samael is the angel of death to the ego. The Angel Samael is Mars, Aries, the God of war against the ego.

Aries, Mars, Samael is the same force. He wages his war on behalf of God, not for selfish purposes, and not to punish indiscriminately, but to punish on behalf of God, with the permission of God, and for the good of all. Samael performs the will of God. The Zohar says:
 
"Rabbi Shimon opened the discussion saying, 'See now that I, even I am he, and there is no Elohim with me' (Devarim 32:39). He said: Friends, listen to ancient words that I wish to reveal after permission from above has been granted for them to be said. Who is he who said, 'See now that I, even I, am he?' The cause high above all causes, the one that is called the 'Cause of causes,' a Cause among all the rest of the causes. So every single one of these causes shall not do anything unless it receives permission from the cause above it...

"The phrase: 'And there is no Elohim with me' is Samael and the Serpent. 'I kill, and I make alive' is I kill with my Shechinah whoever is guilty and 'I make alive' with her whoever is innocent." ―Zohar
 
This is the power of Samael: to kill and to make alive. That power acts in accordance with the Most High, those causes which exist above the sephirah Geburah. Geburah (severity) is the sephirah of Mars from which the Angel Samael departs in order to punish those who deserve it and to reward those who deserve it. This is simple cause and effect. This is in the root of Judaism and Christianity, but everyone ignores it.

When Samael rode into the garden of Eden on the back of the serpent, he was doing the will of God. We like to blame the serpent like the serpent was doing something bad but the serpent was not. The serpent is the Divine Mother. It is Her essence, and guiding that force (riding on its back) is the Angel Samael, who is there to tempt the woman for her own good.

The soul grows when it conquers temptation, and the soul degenerates when it falls to temptation. This is simple cause and effect. It is simply energy.
 
Samael—doing his duty—appeared in the Garden to tempt the woman so that she would have the opportunity to learn from the Tree of Knowledge and to grow, to advance, but she did not. She gave into her desire and failed. Now everyone blames Samael, everyone blames the serpent. If you look into the Zohar, if you look into the Jewish tradition, you find that Samael is blamed for everything, but at the same time they say he is an angel. It is a little bit hard to follow their logic.

Nevertheless, the woman succumbs to temptation and had to bear the consequences. The first consequence was that the man and woman were cast out of Eden. Thus we are in the state of suffering. [...]
 
Every angel is a God. This is why the name סמאל Samael ends with אל El, which means God. But that God can send his prophet, his human soul, his earthly soul, his manifestation Buddha. He can send his representative to Malkuth, to the world, and the Angel Samael did this; he sent his son, Samael Aun Weor, the bodhisattva of Samael.

Unfortunately, the human soul of the Angel Samael had fallen like everyone else, had resurrected his Cain [egotistical mind or intellect] and was living like any other person on the planet. He was a degenerate, a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, like all of us. But, the Angel Samael had a great cosmic duty to fulfill as explained in the prophecies of Revelation, and to advance humanity in its evolution, to free humanity from its suffering. So the Angel Samael pushed his human soul to rise up from the muddy Earth, and this entails a long process, a very painful experience of the human soul that we know now as Samael Aun Weor.

With the help of God, he was able to fulfill his duty, and he restored himself back to his rightful place, redeemed himself of his mistakes, and cleansed himself of his ego, because he learned, practiced, and taught the doctrine of his Father, Samael, the Angel of War.

The Bodhisattva embodied the image of his Father: revolution, rebellion, war against oneself, against Cain. This is why the teaching of Samael Aun Weor is so potent, so direct, and does not dance around the issues. He is a warrior who presents a doctrine that is as sharp as a sword and is painful to the ego. This is why so many people cannot read his books and cannot accept his teachings, because they taste the bitterness of the beverage "Samael," the Angel who wants to eliminate the ego in order to free Abel [the Essence, the consciousness] from his prison.

Remember when Cain killed his brother, Abel's blood seeps into the Earth, and God says, "I hear your brother crying out to me from the earth," and Cain admits that he killed him. This is a symbol of how our soul becomes trapped in hell, in the Klipoth, because of the crimes of our minds, because of the murder and fornication of Cain. The doctrine of Samael kills Cain in order to free Abel, but that freedom does not come just by Abel emerging out of the Earth. That freedom comes through Seth [the sacred fire of the Holy Ghost], the third son of Adam and Eve. ―Gnostic Instructor, The Sons of Samael

Is Sexual Magic Dangerous?

And I brethren cannot speak unto you, as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. ―1 Corinthians 3:1

People with subjective psyches are absolutely utopian. They mistakenly suppose that they can be enlightened without having achieved the death of the ego in a radical and categorical way. These people do not want to understand that as long as they are self-imprisoned, genuine, objective enlightenment is completely impossible. The price of enlightenment is paid with one's own life. In the sacred land of the Vedas there are chelas (disciples) that after thirty years of intensive work are only at the beginning, in the prologue of their work. ​―Samael Aun Weor, The Mystery of the Golden Flower

We give this caution so that the student knows what to expect. It is best for the curious, the profane and the profaners of the temple to withdraw. This science is not for the curious. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.” ―Ecclesiastes 1:18

Therefore, stay back, nosy people!

​Therefore, stay back, profaners! Gnosis is a two-edged sword; it defends and gives life to the humble and virtuous, yet, it wounds and destroys the curious and impure. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

Isn't Chastity Just an Outdated Remnant of Puritanical Religions?

Are Samael Aun Weor's Sexual Teachings Misogynistic?

Student: Master, the ladies always wonder why they are relegated by some to an inferior level. Consequently, they want to know what their accomplishments could be, that is, what they could get if they work on themselves with the three factors of the revolution of consciousness?

​Samael Aun Weor: I do not know why some want women to be relegated to an inferior level. The harsh reality of the facts is that women have the same rights as men; that is obvious. Like any man, women also have to create their existential superior bodies of the Being. Like any man, they must incarnate their human soul. Like any man, they have to betroth their Buddhi, to marry their beloved one. So, I do not know why some want to relegate women to an inferior level. ―Questions About the Path

Kabbalah of Genesis

Question: Venerable Master, what is your concept about woman; how do you define her?

Samael Aun Weor: The woman, undoubtedly, has the same rights as the man. If we study carefully the word אלוהים "Elohim," which figures in the Bible, we will find that it is a feminine noun [אלוה] with a masculine plural ending [ים]. The exact translation of such a noun is "gods and goddesses."

A religion without goddesses is found amidst materialistic atheism, because if Elohim are divine androgynous beings, so-called gods and goddesses, I can say that the result is we would be halfway to atheism.

One cannot remove goddesses from any religion because within us the divinity is masculine and feminine at the same time.

We are able to deduce from this as a corollary that the woman has the same rights as the man, and that the inner self-realization of the Being is not possible without the union of the separate parts: man and woman. Both united by means of sex, they constitute an ineffable creature, a Creator-Elohim. ​―Questions of Importance to Women

Why Isn't Chastity Mainstream?

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
​
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.  ―Matthew 7:13-14

Is Sexual Magic Suitable for the Modern World?

Personal Testimony on Sexual Magic

​I speak from experience, because, like many, I also found a promiscuous lifestyle unavoidable in my youth. I believed (as I had been programmed to) that the only way to attract a partner was to be sexy and promiscuous, and that sex with multiple people before marriage was the best way to find the right fit for a long-term relationship. Therefore, when I found this teaching in my early 20s, I enjoyed the Gnostic philosophy while rejecting the sexual practices as an aberration. During that period, approximately three years, I endured the most painful series of heartbreaks of my life. As I was forced to face the reality that mainstream sexual practices and relationships were harmful, not only for me, but for my friends and the partners I damaged with my capriciousness, it never occurred to me that Samael Aun Weor's peculiar denunciation of orgasm could be true. Only at the end of that time, desperately crying out to divinity for help and guidance did the epiphany occur: I had had the wisdom I needed all along, practices I had discarded due to their uncomfortable impact on my well-educated American psyche. I had never taken them seriously before, so I had to return to the study of these teachings again to really learn how to practice chastity and transmutation. Through great willpower and the poignant comprehension of the deception of modern sexual propaganda, I never returned to the practices of orgasm or masturbation. 

Far from experiencing the negative physical effects that mainstream medicine would have us expect, I (and the other Gnostic practitioners who have unfailingly developed the daily sublimation of these energies) have experienced more youthfulness, more energy and lucidity, and more sexual serenity. I still feel sexual attraction, but rather than being compelled by instinct as before, I can easily direct that energy according to my own will. I am no longer so tightly fused with lust that I am a slave to its whims. There are dozens of students and instructors in our small organization alone who have been practicing chastity and refraining from orgasm for years without any medical problems. My spouse and I have practiced sexual magic without orgasm for years, and neither of us have suffered any problems for it. On the contrary, chastity opens new worlds of consciousness and access to the subtle levels of nature that we could not perceive while constantly burning with uncontrollable passion. Pleasure is not suddenly absent from the sexual act due to the absence of orgasm, but the sexual act changes when the goal is no longer a climax of pleasure but an awakening of consciousness. It is impossible to describe in words to you or anyone who has not experienced it how very different White Tantra, pure sexual union, is from the ordinary practice of lustful connection. They are entirely different experiences, despite appearing so similar on a materialistic level. Sexuality is much deeper than physicality; it is our spiritual root. ​

Why Do Gnostics Practice and Teach Sexual Magic?

It so happens that people think that by belonging to this or that faith, to such and such religion, or to one or another sect, that they are already saved. Naturally, this is false. A seed never germinates because of what a person believes or stops believing. An insect is never born because of what a human being thinks or stops thinking. A man is never born from the parchment of theory. This subject matter is sexual and in this, the Angel is no exception.

The members of all religions, schools, sects, and beliefs say, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” People from all over the world repeat it and presume (as is normal) that they are the chosen ones. Nobody considers himself lost. They believe that with their belief, theory, study etc., they are already saved. However, this is a false and absurd thing, because the problem of being born cannot be the result of beliefs, theories, or concepts. The reality is different. To be born is a totally sexual problem.

Sexual Magic is taught in the esoteric heart of the great religions. Unfortunately, people do not investigate it; they do not inquire. That is the problem.

People do not like Sexual Magic because it means the sacrifice of oneself, of one’s animal passions. Rare is the one who can be truly steadfast in Sexual Magic.  Many begin with curiosity; however, after a few days, they can no longer tolerate it, and then give themselves over to fornication. These are the weak who afterwards go about saying that Sexual Magic is harmful. These are the degenerated seeds that do not germinate.

Sex is the path that leads human beings to final liberation. If someone thinks that a different path may exist for Realization of the Self, he is obviously totally mistaken. This is the law for all the continents, worlds, and spaces. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony: "Conclusion"

Learn more about spiritual sexuality

The Evolution of Sex

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.  Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ―Matthew 7:15-20

What Defines a Master?

1. First Initiation. The Innermost [Spirit] and the conscious soul (Buddhi) are fused, thus creating a new initiate, one more who enters the stream.
2. 
   
3. Second Initiation. The ethereal body called Soma Psuchikón is born.
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5. Third Initiation. The chakras of the astral body are opened and the Christ-astral is born as a beautiful child.
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7. Fourth Initiation. The Christ-mind is born as a very precious child. The initiate has been born as a new Buddha.
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9. Fifth Initiation. The human soul, or causal body or body of will, is fused with the Inner Master, who is Atman-Buddhi (the Innermost and divine consciousness). Thus, the three flames are one. This is a new and legitimate master of the Major Mysteries of the White Lodge. Whosoever reaches the Fifth Initiation can enter Nirvana. Whosoever reaches the Fifth Initiation is born in the causal world. Whosoever reaches the Fifth Initiation incarnates the soul. Only the person who reaches the Fifth Initiation is a human being with soul, that is to say, a True Man. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony​
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11. "...whosoever reaches the fifth Initiation of the Fire [תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth] becomes an adept..." ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
12. ​
    
13. “No student of occultism is a master. True masters are only those who have reached the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries [תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, the causal body]. Before the Fifth Initiation nobody is a master." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony​

Are There Levels of Mastery?

Through the path that I am indicating it is possible to achieve mastery, but it is one thing to achieve mastery and another to achieve perfection in mastery; that is different.

It is not possible to expect that an imperfect master could have the perfection of a perfect master. That is to say, when one becomes a Man [a true human being, whether of the female or male sex], when one has created the existential superior bodies of the Being, of course one also becomes a master, but on the way to perfection in mastery there are nine grades, very hard and more bitter than bile.

Now, to become a great elected and perfect master is the maximum aspiration. The perfect master by himself is something extraordinary, but the great elected is the only one that has totally crystallized the three basic forces of nature [Christ, the top trinity of the Tree of Life] within himself. That is the great elected. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Master Key

Can Women Be Masters?

1. Woman has the same rights as man.

2. Woman also reaches the level of adept of the White Fraternity.

3. Joan of Arc is a master of Major Mysteries of the White Fraternity.

4. H.P. Blavatsky, author of The Secret Doctrine, reached the level of adept and she is a master of Major Mysteries of the White Fraternity.

5. In almost all the temples of the mysteries, we find many female adepts working for humanity.

6. Woman awakens her sacred serpent in the same way as man.

7. If a woman who is married wants to awaken her Kundalini, then she must practice sexual magic with her husband. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose: "The Woman"

What is Perfection in Mastery?

And no man hath ascended up to heaven (Οὐρανός Ouranos: כֶּתֶר Kether, חָכְמָה Chokmah, בינה Binah, the Logos or trinity), but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man (חָכְמָה Chokmah) which is in heaven. And as Moses (the causal body) lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (through the initiations of fire), even so must the Son of Man (the serpents of light) be lifted up (through Christ's Will). ―John 3:13-14

​Sex is needed in order to attain the Venustic Initiation. Sex is needed because there are seven serpents of fire which correspond to the seven bodies: physical, vital, astral, mental, causal, buddhic, and atmic, or Innermost bodies. One serpent corresponds to each one of them. There are seven serpents in total, two groups of three with the sublime coronation of the seventh one which unites us with the Father, with the Law.
 
Whosoever wants to reach the Venustic Initiation has to raise the seven Serpents of Light. The serpent which belongs to the physical body must first be raised in order to receive the first Venustic Initiation. Afterwards, the serpent which belongs to the vital body must be raised in order to receive the second Venustic Initiation and likewise successively. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

What is a Saint?

You must know that the principle and foundation of Sufism and knowledge of God rests on saintship, the reality of which is unanimously affirmed by all the Shaykhs [gurus, teachers], though every one has expressed himself in different language. […]
 
Waláyat means etymologically, ‘power to dispose’ (taṣarruf), and wiláyat means ‘possession of command’ (imárat). Waláyat also means ‘lordship’ (rubúbiyyat); hence God hath said: ‘In this case the lordship (al-waláyat) belongs to God who is the Truth’ (Koran 18:42), because the unbelievers [fornicators] seek His protection and turn unto Him and renounce their idols [egos]. And wiláyat also means ‘love’ (maḥabbat). Walí may be the form fa’íl with the meaning of maf’úl, as God hath said: ‘And He takes charge of (yatawallá) the righteous’ (Koran 7:195), for God does not leave His servant to his own actions and attributes, but keeps him under His protection. And walí may be the form fa’íl, equivalent to fa’il, with an intensive force, because a man takes care (tawallí kunad) to obey God and constantly fulfill the obligations [ethical, divine law] that he owes to Him. Thus walí in the active meaning is ‘one who desires’ (murid), while in the passive meaning it denotes ‘one who is the object of God’s desire’ (murád). ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 210-11)

The authentic saint is a perfect gentleman/lady who totally fulfills the ten commandments of the law of God, and who knows how to handle his sword [Kundalini] when necessary, in order to defend good, truth, and justice. The authentic saint never goes around boasting about it, since he is always known by his deeds. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” [Matthew 7:16] —Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

Ancient traditions of Islam tell us that the sacred ashes of the old Sufi Al-Hallaj were dispersed in the winds from the heights of the Manarah.
 
Ancient Arabic legends state that instead of a white blanket, this saint’s cadaver was rolled up in a filthy rug formerly damped in petroleum.
 
When the holy body burned, consumed by the fire of the holocaust, the whole of nature shook filled with infinite terror.
 
The great hierophant Sufi Al-Hallaj, by means of chisel and hammer, transformed the brute stone and gave a perfect cubic shape onto it.
 
Before physically dying, the great, immolated Al-Hallaj was already absolutely dead psychologically.
 
The resplendent diamond soul of Mansur Al-Hallaj is treading upon the heavenly path heading towards the Absolute.
 
The great Sufi initiate Al-Hallaj was born, died, and sacrificed himself completely for humanity. —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way: “The Passion of Al-Hallaj”

What is a Prophet?

Avataras appear for special reasons in special circumstances. Whenever there is much unrighteousness, whenever confusion and disorder set in on account of unrighteousness and baffle the well-ordered progress of people, whenever the balance of human society is upset by selfish, ruthless and cruel beings, whenever irreligion and Adharma prevail, whenever the foundations of social organisations are undermined, Avataras appear to establish Dharma and to restore peace. Avatara is a descent of God for the ascent of man. A ray from the Hiranyagarbha descends on earth with mighty powers to keep up the harmony of the universe. The work done by the Avataras and their teachings produce a benign spiritual influence on human beings and help them in their upward divine unfoldment and Self-realisation. The Avatara comes to reveal the divine nature in man and makes him rise above the petty materialistic life of passion and egoism. ―Swami Sivananda, Lord Krishna, His Lilas and Teachings

We surely sent a messenger to every community, saying, "Worship Allah and shun false gods." But some of them were guided by Allah, while others were destined to stray. So travel throughout the land and see the fate of the deniers! ―Qur'an 16:36​

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. ―John 3:19

...the Omni-merciful, the infinitude that sustains all, the very, very sacred Absolute Sun, periodically sends Avatars, Saviors, to this valley of tears. These sacred individuals, these messengers, these Saviors, are living incarnations of the Omni-merciful. Nevertheless, this lunar race, this perverse race of Adam, mortally hates such helpers. [...] The blessed Krishna, the blessed Buddha, the blessed Lama, the blessed Mohammed, the loving, essential Ashiata Shiemash, Moses, Quetzalcoatl (and many others) were all Avatars. The doctrine of all Avatars has its roots in the three basic factors of the revolution of the consciousness: to be born, to die, and to sacrifice the self for humanity. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

How is a Prophet Different from a Saint?

Samael Aun Weor: When we say soul, it must be understood that we refer to a set of forces, powers, virtues, etc. For example, if one disintegrates the defect of lust, then the virtue of chastity crystallizes within us. If we eliminate hatred, then love crystallizes within us. If we disintegrate egotism, then altruism crystallizes within us, and likewise, successively. Whenever we eliminate a defect, something of the soul crystallizes within us: a law, a power, a virtue, etc. Thus, when all of the psychic aggregates that we carry within our interior die, we will then possess our entire soul… This is why the gospels state: “In your patience you will possess your souls.” Moreover, even the physical body must become soul. [...]

Question: It is true that some saints emanated the scent of flowers from their bodies? Is this event due to what you expressed in the previous answer?
 
Samael Aun Weor: To a large extent, it is due to what I already stated. Yet, it is necessary to go beyond the category of a saint. One thing is the profane [the Vulgar Man of the Earth], another thing is a saint [the Man Who Loves], and yet another is an adept [the Man Who Dwells in Silence].
 
Regarding the adept [the Man Who Dwells in Silence], even his very body of flesh and bone becomes soul, can become immortal, becomes a mutant that is no longer subject to time… ―Samael Aun Weor, "Profound Meditation"

In fact, the end of saintship is only the beginning of prophecy. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 223)

The Venustic Initiation is only for true human beings, never for intellectual animals. Let ‘true human beings’ be understood as those who already created the solar bodies. Let “intellectual animals” be understood as all of humanity [the Vulgar Man of the Earth], all the people who only have lunar bodies. The Venustic Initiation is the true nativity of the tranquil heart. The Venustic Initiation is for the few; it is a grace from the Solar Logos. In Nirvana, there are many Buddhas [saints] who―in spite of their great perfections―have never reached the Venustic Initiation. ―Samael Aun Weor, Light from Darkness

Nũn. By the pen and what everyone writes!  ―Al-Qalam 1

Or do they say, “He has fabricated a lie about Allah”? If you had, Allah would have sealed your heart, if He willed. And Allah wipes out falsehood and establishes the truth by His Words. He certainly knows best what is hidden in the heart.  ―Qur'an 42:24

Initiation is your own life. If you want initiation, write it upon a staff. Whosoever has understanding let him understand, because there is wisdom within. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony: "Initiation"

How are Prophets Superior to Saints?

It is related that [Junayd] he said: "The speech of the prophets gives information concerning presence (ḥuḍúr), while the speech of the saints (ṣiddíqín) [or Hebrew צדיקים Tzadikim, the masters of the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries] alludes to contemplation (musháhadat)." True information is derived from sight, and it is impossible to give true information of anything that one has not actually witnessed [experienced in the superior worlds beyond the body], whereas allusion (ishárat) involves reference to another thing. Hence the perfection and ultimate goal of the saints [masters of תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, Nirvanis, or Pratyekas] is the beginning of the state of the prophets [of the Venustic Initiation]. The distinction between prophet (nabí) and saint (walí), and the superiority of the former to the latter, is plain, notwithstanding that two heretical sects declare the saints to surpass the prophets in excellence. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 129)

…one moment of the prophets is better than the whole life of the saints, because when the saints reach their goal they tell of contemplation (musháhadat) and obtain release from the veil of humanity (bashariyyat), although they are essentially men. On the other hand, contemplation is the first step of the apostle [Prophet Muhammad]; and since the apostle’s starting-place is the saint’s goal, they cannot be judged by the same standard. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 237)

Saintship has a beginning and an end, but prophecy has not. The prophets were prophets from the first, and shall be to the last, and before they existed [physically] they were prophets in the knowledge and will of God [in past cosmic ages]. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 238).
 
The Bodhisattvas with compassionate hearts sacrifice themselves for planetary humanities through successive Mahamanvantaras [cosmic ages of activity], and finally, they achieve the [complete perfection and] incarnation of Christ. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

​Rumi: The Camel and the Mouse

A mouse caught hold of a camel’s lead rope
in his two forelegs and walked off with it,
imitating the camel-drivers.
 
The camel went along,
letting the mouse feel heroic.

“Enjoy yourself,”
he thought. “I have something to teach you, presently.”
 
They came to the edge of a great river.
The mouse was dumbfounded.
 
“What are you waiting for?
Step forward into the river. You are my leader.
Don’t stop here.”
 
“I’m afraid of being drowned.”
 
The camel walked into the water. “It’s only
just above the knee.”
 
“Your knee! Your knee
is a hundred times over my head!”
 
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t
be leading a camel. Stay with those like yourself.
A mouse has nothing really to say to a camel.”
 
“Would you help me get across?”
 
“Get up on my hump. I am made to take hundreds like you
across.”
 
You are not a prophet, but go humbly on the way of the prophets,

and you can arrive where they are. Don’t try to steer the boat.
Don’t open a shop by yourself. Listen. Keep silent.
You are not God’s mouthpiece. Try to be an ear,
and if you do speak, ask for explanations.
 
The source of your arrogance and anger is your lust
and the rootedness of that is in your habits.
 
Someone who makes a habit of eating clay
gets mad when you try to keep him from it.
Being a leader can also be a poisonous habit,
so that when someone questions your authority,
you think, “He’s trying to take over.”
You may respond courteously, but inside you rage.
 
Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn’t know it’s copper,
until it’s changed to gold.
 
Your loving doesn’t know its majesty,
until it knows its helplessness. ―The Essential Rumi

Where Does Prophecy Begin?

Beyond the three known dimension, physical dimension, length, width and height, exists the Fourth dimension; this dimension is Time. Beyond Time we have the Fifth Dimension; this dimension is Eternity. Moreover, we asseverate that beyond Eternity a Sixth Dimension exists; this Sixth Dimension is beyond Eternity and Time. In this sixth fundamental dimension is where total liberation begins. Therefore, only the person who awakens in all the six fundamental dimensions of space is a true clairvoyant, a Turiya, a legitimate enlightened one. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Do not you perceive that, according to the unanimous opinion of all the saints who seek God, the station of union (‘jam) belongs to the perfection of saintship [the Fifth Initiation of Fire]? Now, in this station, a man attains such a degree of rapturous love that his intelligence is enraptured in gazing upon the act of God (fi’l), and in his longing for the Divine Agent (fá’il) he regards the whole universe as that and sees nothing but that [since in the world of תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, Nirvana, one perceives the universe through divine causality, the movement, ebb, and flow of action and consequence within nature and all beings]. Thus Abú ‘Alí Rúbárí says: ‘Were the vision of that which we serve to vanish from us, we should lose the name of servantship (‘ubúdiyyat) [Nirvani or Pratyeka buddha],’ for we derive the glory of worship (‘ibádat) solely from vision of Him [within the sixth dimension, תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, Nirvana]. This is the beginning of the state of the prophets, inasmuch as separation (tafriqa) is inconceivable in relation to them. They are entirely in the essence of union, whether they affirm or deny, whether they approach or turn away, whether they are at the beginning [of the Venustic Initiations] or at the end [of Resurrection on the Second Mountain]. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 237)

What are the Three Principal Paths of Mastery?

Fortunately my dear friends, justice and mercy are the two principal columns of the Universal White Fraternity. Justice without mercy is tyranny; mercy without justice is tolerance, complacency with crime. ―Samael Aun Weor, Hell, Devil, and Karma
 
Mercy and Justice, be ye the equilibrium and splendor of my life! ―Invocation of Solomon

The initiates of the darkness, as well as the initiates of the Light, fall to the Left and to the Right.
 
The Path of the Middle (the Eightfold Path of the Bodhisattvas [Adepts, Prophets] with compassionate hearts) leads us to the port of liberation.
 
Unfortunately, rare are those who are capable of marching on the Path of the Middle towards the final liberation. Those who do not fall on the tenebrous path of the Left, fall on the path of the Right.
 
The tenebrous ones [black magicians] descend through the path of the Left within the abode of Pluto [Hades, Klipoth, the Inferno].
 
The saints [Pratyeka buddhas] ascend through the path of the Right, towards the marvelous Kingdom of the Light.
 
The tenebrous ones as well as the saints rotate within the Wheel of Samsara [Bhavachakra].
 
The tenebrous ones pass through the Buddhist Annihilation within the heart of the world.
 
Posteriorly they enter into the elemental paradises of Nature, after having suffered a great deal.
 
The journey through the subterranean world is millions of times more bitter than bile.
 
The saints return to the Valley of Samsara. They reincorporate themselves into a new human organism when the reward is finished.
 
Neither the human beings with goat skins [black magicians who strengthen animal passion], nor the human beings with sheep skins [saints, initiates, and Nirvanis who transmute their creative energies] achieve the final liberation.
 
The authentic final liberation is only for the rebels, for those who march on the Path of the Middle [the adepts, masters, prophets, or bodhisattvas]...
 
Demons and saints look with horror and terror at the revolutionary adepts [prophets]​ of the Path of the Middle.
 
No one understands these rebels of the Path of the Middle. […]
 
The initiate must learn how to walk with two feet [controlling the forces of the left and right paths: those of the demons and saints, without being identified with either].
 
The Pratyeka Buddhas [saints] and their Shravakas aspirants [followers] are scared, and they anathematize the Bodhisattva [master, adept, prophet] who knows how to walk with his two legs [to navigate and transcend both heaven and hell].
 
The sincere and noble devotees from the path of the Right stone the initiates who learn to sustain themselves in equilibrium over their left leg.
 
Every initiate who knows how to walk with his two legs terrorizes the noble ones of the Right.

I am speaking in parables; I am speaking of sheep and goats. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

Should I Desire Mastery?

It is related that Ibráhím b. Adham asked a certain man whether he desired to be one of God’s saints [a master of the Fifth Initiation of Fire], and on his replying "Yes," said: "Do not cover anything in this world or the next, and devote thyself entirely to God, and turn to God with all thy heart." To covet this world is to turn away from God for the sake of that which is transitory, and to covet the next world is to turn away from God for the sake of that which is everlasting: that which is transitory perishes and its renunciation becomes naught, but that which is everlasting cannot perish, hence its renunciation is also imperishable. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 217)
 
There are many people who do not envy money, social status, ranks, honors, possessions, but they envy the saints; they covet their virtues so that they can also become saints.
 
There are people who dress humbly, nonetheless they have sublime pride, they are conceited with their simplicity; they do not boast about anything, thus they not only hide their pride from others but also from themselves. ―Samael Aun Weor, Light from Darkness

Do not covet powers, beloved reader. Powers are born as fruits of our Innermost when our soul has been purified. The mental force that we strain to use in order to move a piece of paper would be better used in order to dominate our carnal passion, in order to end hatred, in order to dominate our language, in order to defeat selfishness, envy, etc.
 
Let us purify ourselves, since powers will be granted to us through successive purifications. Powers are flowers of the soul and fruits of the Innermost. The powers of a Mahatma are the fruits of many purifications.
 
Through initiatic ordeals the Gnostic disciple receives distinct powers from the White Lodge. These powers are acquired by the soul, and the Innermost “seizes” them, because the Innermost is the real human within us. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub

What is Mythomania?

The Essence of any disciplined hermit [saint], accustomed to escaping from within the “I,” repeats such a feat after the death of his physical body. Then, his Essence enjoys the ecstasy for some time. Yet, after such time, his Essence returns as the Genie of Aladdin’s lamp, back into the interior of the lamp, the ego, the myself.
 
Thereupon, he has no other choice but to return into a new physical body with the purpose of repeating his life on the stage of existence.
 
Many mystics who lived and died in the caverns of the Himalayas in central Asia reincarnated again and are now vulgar, common and current people in this world, in spite of the fact that their followers still adore and venerate them.
 
Therefore, any attempt at liberation, no matter how great it might be, if it does not take into consideration the necessity of dissolving the ego, it is condemned to failure. ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

The value of the human person which is the intellectual animal called human being is less than the ash of a cigarette. However, the fools feel themselves to be giants. Unfortunately, within all the pseudo-esoteric currents a great amount of mythomaniac people exist, individuals who feel themselves to be masters, people who enjoy when others call them masters, individuals who believe themselves to be Gods, individuals who presume to be saints. The only one who is truly great is the Spirit, the Innermost. We, the intellectual animals, are leaves that the wind tosses about... ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

​It is recorded that [Al-Kirmáni] said: "The eminent have eminence until they see it, and the saints [masters] have saintship [mastery] until they see it," i.e. whoever regards his eminence loses its reality, and whoever regards his saintship [mastery through mythomania] loses its reality. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 138)

Authentic degrees and authentic white initiations are received in the consciousness. These initiatic ceremonies are performed within the superior worlds. Initiations are intimate realizations of the consciousness, which must not be revealed, or spoken about. No one can grant initiations to anyone. Initiation is attained through life itself. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

How to Tell if a Master is Genuine?

Abú Yazíd was asked: "Who is a saint [Nirvani buddha, a master of the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries]?" He answered: "That one who is patient under the command and prohibition of God," because the more a man loves God the more does his heart revere what He commands and the farther is his body from what He forbids. It is related that Abú Yazíd said: "Once I was told that a saint of God was in such and such a town. I set out to visit him. When I arrived at his mosque he came forth from his chamber and spat on the floor of the mosque." ―Revelation of the Mystery (p. 217)

...why should we see perversity in sex? Why do we spit on the holy shrine of love? Why do we look lustfully at what is sacred, that is, the chemical or metaphysical copulation? ―Samael Aun Weor, "Love and Sex"

"I turned back without saluting him, and said to myself: 'A saint must keep the religious law [ethics, chastity] in order that God may keep him in his spiritual state. Had this man been a saint [master] his respect for the mosque [Gnostic temple] would have preserved him from marring the grace vouchsafed to him.' The same night I dreamed that the Apostle [Prophet Muhammad] said to me, 'O Abú Yazíd, the blessing of that which thou hast done is come to thee.' Next day I attained to this degree which ye behold." And I have heard that a man who came to visit Shaykh Abú Sa’íd entered the mosque [Gnostic temple] with his left foot foremost [since one enters Gnostic temples with the right foot, signifying transmutation and chastity]. The Shaykh gave orders that he should be dismissed, saying: ‘He who does not know how to enter the house of the Friend is not suitable for us.’ Some heretics who have adopted this perilous doctrine assert that service of God (khidmat) is necessary only while one is becoming a saint [master of the Fifth Initiation of Fire] but that after one has become a saint, service [ethical conduct] is abolished. This is clearly wrong. There is no ‘station’ on the way to the Truth where any obligation of service [ethics] is abolished. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 217-18)

​Can a Master Save Me?

Religious obligations (taklíf) depend on Divine guidance (hidáyat), and acts of mortification [striving against oneself in the death of the ego] only serve to affirm the proofs of God [through awakening consciousness], not to effect real union with Him [without sexual alchemy]. God has said: ‘And though We had sent down the angels unto them and the dead had spoken unto them and We had gathered before them all things together, they would not have believed unless God had so willed’ (Koran 6:111), for the cause of belief is Our will, not [material] evidence or mortification [striving in psychological death alone]. Accordingly, the revelations of the Prophets and ordinances of religion are a means (asbáb) of attaining union [Self-realization], but are not the cause (‘illat) of union [Self-realization]. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 204)

It is not appropriate for someone who Allah has blessed with the Scripture, wisdom, and prophethood to say to people, "Worship me instead of Allah." Rather, he would say, "Be devoted to the worship of your Lord alone"―in accordance with what these prophets read in the Scripture and what they taught. And he would never ask you to take angels and prophets as lords. Would he ask you to disbelieve after you have submitted?” ―Qur’an 3:79-80

Should I Follow a Master?

I do not follow anyone; therefore no one should follow me. ―Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology

This is why we advise our disciples not to follow anyone. Let our disciples follow their own Self. Each of our disciples has to follow their resplendent and luminous inner Being. Each one has to adore their own “I Am.” We beg, beseech, our disciples not to follow us. We do not want henchmen or followers. We have written this book so that you, our friends, listen to your own internal master, your resplendent “I AM.” The Innermost is your master: follow Him. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

First, take heed that none of the many false avatars who appear during these times deceive you, for many impostors appear in these times and deceive others. Second, take heed of sexual temptations. Third, do not ever attend spiritual centers; the mediums-channelers can easily lead you astray from the path. Many disciples have fallen horribly due to these three dangerous reasons. Flee from these three treacherous dangers so that you may not lose your initiations and degrees. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

How to Find a Real Master?

There is a need to search for a guru in order for him to guide us along this internal and delicate way. The guru must be searched for within, in the profundity of the consciousness... Each disciple must search for the master inside, inside, inside. The master is found in the profundity of our consciousness. If you want to search for the master, abandon all bookish erudition and pseudo-spiritual schools. The master appears when the disciple is prepared. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

...in this day and age, it is very dangerous to just simply follow someone. What is best is to seek the Inner Master. The best thing is to follow our “I Am.” The best thing is to learn how to travel in the astral body in order to visit the temples of the White Lodge and to receive the teachings directly in the temple... ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

What Are Genuine Masters Like?

The authentic master never boasts of being a master... An authentic guru does not go around boasting about it. The authentic guru is the Inner Christ. A true master goes around everywhere anonymously and unknown. He does not exhibit his deeds or powers, and is filled with modesty. A true master is before anything else an upright citizen. The authentic master is never an intellectual, since the intellect is an animal function of the human “I.” The true master is like a child, pure, holy, simple, and natural. The true master is the Inner Christ “that is the true Light, which lightens every man that comes into the world” [John 1:9]. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries
 
...the authentic female enlightened masters never go around boasting about it. The true disciples and masters are those who know how to consciously travel in their astral body. The male and female devotees who remember their past lives and who can astrally attend the temples of mystery are true enlightened beings, yet they never go around boasting about it; these are the ones who really know. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

You [if you have reached levels of initiation] are not the master, you are only the sinning shadow of He who has never sinned. Remember that only your internal Lamb is the master. Remember that even though your internal God is a Hierarch of fire, you, poor slug, are only a human being and as a human being you will always be judged. Your internal Lamb could be a planetary God, but you, poor slug of the mud, do not forget, always remember that you are only the shadow of your God. Poor sinning shadow...! Do not say “I am this God” or “I am that master,” because you are only a shadow that must resolve to die [to the ego] and be slaughtered [upon the cross of alchemy] in order not to serve as an obstacle for your internal God. It is necessary for you to reach supreme humbleness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message

Why Did Samael Aun Weor Proclaim His Mastery?

Mu’jízát [evidentiary miracles of a prophet] involve publicity and karámát [miracles of a saint, a master of the fifth initiation] secrecy, because the result of the former is to affect others, while the latter are peculiar to the person by whom they are performed. —Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery

When a Logos wants to come into the World, he emanates his Innermost. The Innermost then, together with the Divine Soul, is the Dhyani Bodhisattva of a Logos. ―Samael Aun Weor, Manual of Practical Magic

The end of saintship (the Fifth Initiation of Fire) is only the beginning of prophecy (the Venustic Initiations). —Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery

​…miracles are not vouchsafed to a saint except when he is in a state of intoxication [mystical ecstasy], whereas the miracles of the prophets are wrought in the state of sobriety [mastery and self-control]. Hence… this is a clear distinction between mu’jízát and karámát, for the saint, being enraptured, pays no heed to the people and does not call upon them to follow him, while the prophet, being sober, exerts himself to attain his object and challenges the people to rival what he has done. Moreover, the prophet may choose whether he will manifest or conceal his extraordinary powers, but the saints have no such choice… ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 226)

The really holy never need to be honored; their selves are already honored by Love. If a lamp wants to be placed where it can be seen, it wants that for others’ sake, not its own. What does the lamp care whether it is placed ‘above’ or ‘below’? Wherever it is, it is still a lamp and it still gives out light. Nevertheless, it wants its light to reach and help others. Imagine if the sun were below the earth―it would still be the sun, of course, but the world would languish in darkness. So the sun is placed in its regal position not for its own sake at all, but for the world’s. The real holy ones who are put in high positions are like the lamp and the sun―they do not care about ‘high’ or ‘low,’ ‘above’ or ‘below,’ and do not look to be revered by others.
 
When Vision unfurls its ecstatic flag in you, or your mind blazes from a lightning flash of grace from heaven, you are, in that moment, cold to ‘above’ and ‘below,’ to all status and rank, mastery or leadership, all man-made titles, praises, elevations, honors. None of these things concern you: you soar like a hawk in the cloudless sky of union.
 
If such splendor breaks over ordinary seekers, imagine how little the really holy ones, who are the mines themselves of that Love and that Splendor, could possibly care for ‘below’ and ‘above’! No categories of any kind chain or even interest them; all their glorying is in God, and God is utterly free of anything we know as ‘above’ or ‘below.’ ‘Above’ and ‘below’ belong to those of us who have heads and feet and deluded imaginations in the service of the tyrants of our false selves. Mohammad, may he always rest in peace, said once: ‘Do not make me out to be greater than Jonah, just because his ascension was in a whale’s belly while mine took place in Heaven and on the Throne.’ What the Prophet meant was this: "For God, the whale’s belly is the same as the Throne.” ―The Rumi Collection (p. 222-23).

Did Samael Aun Weor Want Followers?

Take heed, my brothers and sisters, of those wolves dressed in sheepskin. Be prudent, be cautious, and withdraw from all of those spiritualist cages that are true centers of exploitation and moral corruption. The owners of all of those lodges are now very jealous of their businesses and consider the Master Samael Aun Weor as a very dangerous element. Indeed, those black magicians are right: I am a very dangerous element for them, because I remove the masks from their faces, and show their naked shame in the open, before the solemn verdict of public consciousness. So, the wicked ones fight back in order to defend their business, thus they abruptly run to defend it.
 
I tell all of those lodge owners that they should not be so afraid of me, since I am not in need of their money, nor do I extend certificates, nor do I send correspondence courses, nor do I found schools, nor do I grant diplomas in order to become wealthy.
 
If they think that Samael has attacked them in order to take away their clientele, then they are mistaken, because Samael does not own any school, nor is Samael in the need of clientele.
​
I, Samael, am not in need of henchmen or followers, but only imitators of my doctrine: Gnosis.  I do not follow anyone, nor do I want anyone to follow me. What I want is for each one of you to follow his own Self.  I am only a lighthouse in the sea of existence, and I do not need clientele in order to subsist.
 
Since I am against the slavery of souls, I do not want to enslave any soul, nor do I agree with executioners of ideals.

Masters exists in abundance, and I am only one of many; thus, those who want to find the Masters will find them inside, within the profundities of their own inner consciousness.
 
Since long ago, all the spiritualist brethren of the world have been waiting for the great Avatar [messenger] of Aquarius; listen, do not wait for another messenger, because I am the initiator of the new era. The tree is known by its fruits.  I am a tree: my fruits are my books. Thus, study them, practice them, and do not forget that the Master appears when the disciple is prepared. ―Samael Aun Weor, Inside the Vestibule of Wisdom

Why Are There Many Masters in Gnosis?

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. ―John 1:12-13

Instructors must not be called masters, but "friends." "But be not ye called master: for one is your master, even Christ" [Matthew 23:8]. The Gnostic movement is impersonal. It is made up of humble laborers. Therefore, let us reject any personalization. Let us not accept imposing individuals. No one is better than anyone else. Among us, we are laborers, bricklayers, mechanics, farmers, writers, physicians, etc. [...]

We do not worship noble titles, nor resounding titles like “doctor, lawyer, guru, master, elder brother, avatar,” etc., because among Gnostics we are all friends, and Aquarius is the house of friends... Remember that the only master is Christ (a multiple perfect unity). We humans are more or less imperfect, thus I, the one who writes this book, am not anyone’s master, and I beg people to not follow me. I am an imperfect human just like anyone else, and it is an error to follow someone who is imperfect. Let every one follow their "I Am." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Meetings' Regulations"

​Initiation is something very intimate, very secret, very divine. Avoid all those who say, "I have so many initiations, so many degrees." Avoid all those who say, "I am a master of Major Mysteries; I have received so many initiations." Remember, dear reader, that the "I," that the personality does not receive initiations. Initiation is a matter for the Innermost; it has to do with the consciousness, with the very delicate things of the Soul. One must not go about speaking of these things. No true adept would ever use phrases like, "I am a master of the White Lodge," "I have such-and-such degree," "I have so many initiations," "I have these powers," etc. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

​My Shaykh used to say that if a saint reveals his saintship and claims to be a saint, the soundness of his spiritual state is not impaired thereby, but if he takes pains to obtain publicity he is led astray by self-conceit. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation the Mystery (p. 223-24)

Abú Yazíd was asked about the state of the prophets. He replied: "Far be it from me to say! We have no power to judge of them, and in our notions of them we are wholly ourselves. God has placed their denial and affirmation in such an exalted degree (of objective reasoning) that human vision cannot reach unto it." Accordingly, as the rank of the saints (masters of תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth) is hidden from the perception of mankind, so the rank of the prophets (Dhyani-Bodhisattvas of the Logos) is hidden from the judgment of the saints (including the Buddhas of Nirvana). —Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery (p. 238)

Do Masters Reform Other Groups?

Understand: the missionaries who go to form the army do not go as “lumisial reformers,” since every lumisial [Gnostic school or temple] depends upon a principal person, and this one, in himself and by himself, will answer to the great law for his work. Therefore, by no means do the missionaries have the authority to go everywhere reforming lumisials or dividing groups, or something of the sort. Let the principal person of each Gnostic lumisial answer for his work. Moreover, no missionary is authorized to go and reform the work of the principal person of any lumisial. Understand: the missionaries are not reformers of groups; the missionaries go to form new groups, and that is different. Therefore, any missionary has the liberty to form new groups. ―Samael Aun Weor, "Missionaries, Donations, and Schools"

Who Can Be Trusted?

Around the inventors of new values the world revolves: invisibly it revolves. But around the actors revolve the people and fame: that is the way of the world. ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "On the Flies of the Marketplace"

The mind believes, the mind that does not believe, the mind that doubts, is an ignorant mind. The path of wisdom does not rely on believing, not believing, or doubting. The path of wisdom consists of inquiring, analyzing, meditating, and experiencing. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you… One pays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers―but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you to lose me and find yourselves; and only then when you have all denied me will I return to you… that I may celebrate the great noon with you [the advent of the Superhuman, when the solar logos is at its zenith above illuminating our minds]. ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Conclusion: The Real Master

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, "master, master." But be not ye called master: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. ―Matthew 23:1-10

Discover the true master within you:

​The Secret Guides of Humanity

For throughout all recorded time there have been outstanding people on earth who spoke out with unshakable assurance about the secret of life and even witnessed their conviction with their life—initiates as they have been called. But where and from whom have these 'initiates' received their initiation? And into what were they initiated?

Socrates for example. Consider him taking the cup of poison with divine calm, drinking it to the last drop, speaking fearlessly and objectively, quietly and pleasantly about the effect of the poison, reporting how under the influence of the poison first his feet get cold and die, how the deathly cold gradually crawls up from his feet towards his heart like a snake. He is aware that he is about to die, he takes leave of his faithful students, and closes his eyes. Such unshakable peace and calm in the face of death can only come from sure knowledge. Where did Socrates get this knowledge?

And where have various other titans living on earth at different times got their knowledge about the secret of life and death—their initiation? Even today there must be such 'initiates' living on earth, and there must be some way to obtain initiation, the really great initiation. —Elizabeth Haisch, Initiation

​That this knowledge was carefully guarded by those who were its custodians was also recognised, and throughout the ages the same reason for their caution was assigned; that in the wrong hands this power, if abused, could produce serious harm, because men had no right to make use of it for any personal end, since it was derived from the Great Author of the Universe. The men who held it were trustees and not owners, and might not appropriate this sacred power to their own uses without being guilty of a crime against their God and their fellow-men; and we have many traditions of the swift and heavy punishment which befell those who thus offended, either at the hands of their fellow-initiates, or of the higher powers against whom they had sinned. ―Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate: Chapter I: Laying the Foundations, p. 18

Finding Authentic Initiatic Schools

Many have called themselves of your band; many spurious pretenders have been so-called by the learned ignorance which still, baffled and perplexed, is driven to confess that it knows nothing of your origin, your ceremonies or doctrines, nor even if you still have local habitation on the earth. ―Edward Bulwer Lytton, Zanoni: Book III: Chapter V

​Abu-l-Abbas Ahmad bin Muhammad al-Dinawari observed, “They pull down the pillars of Sufism and tear up its road; they alter its meanings with names they have invented. They call covetousness ‘growth,’ bad behavior ‘sincerity,’ departing from the truth ‘ecstatic utterance,’ and taking pleasure in the objectionable ‘good nature.’ The pursuit of desires is ‘testing,’ returning to the world is ‘union,’ bad temper is ‘forcefulness,’ avarice is ‘endurance,’ begging is ‘work,’ foul language is ‘calling blame upon oneself.’ This is not the way of the [Sufi] people.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

​At first on rare occasions; here and there, with my inner ears, I heard the voice of truth speaking in a book or in the words of a living person. And I always went further in the direction indicated by this mysterious voice. Like the thread of Ariadne, this secret voice always led me on. Sometimes I found someone in my own home town who could give me valuable information for my further search, and sometimes this voice led me far away into strange lands, where I often found information that was in remarkably close agreement with the words I had heard at home.

Thus my path led me to people with ever greater knowledge who explained more and more to me about initiation and about the meaning of life. Naturally I also met many ignorant people and people with half knowledge who pretended to know. But I got so I could recognize immediately when "the hands were Esau's, but the voice was Jacob's." These poor charlatans, pretending to be "initiates," gave themselves away very fast. They were not even in harmony with themselves and their own life, so how could they have taught me anything about the deepest truth of life, about initiation? In such cases I simply went on seeking someone with true knowledge, a true initiate. —Elizabeth Haisch, Initiation

The Superhuman: An Incredulous Reality

Around the inventors of new values the world revolves: invisibly it revolves. But around the actors [religious, political, and philosophical leaders who claim to be initiates, but are not] revolve the people and fame: that is the way of the world. ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "On the Flies of the Marketplace"

Changes are essential during esoteric progress, but reactionary people remain trapped in the past, petrified in time, and they thunder and flash against us as we achieve deep psychological progress and radical changes.

People cannot bear the changes in an Initiate; they want him to continue to be petrified in many yesterdays.

Any change achieved by an Initiate is immediately classified as immoral.

Looking at things from this angle, in the light of the Christic Work [the path of the Superhuman], we can clearly prove the ineffectiveness of the diverse moral codes which have been written throughout the world.

Unquestionably, the Christ, manifested though hidden in the heart of the real human, once he takes charge of our diverse psychological states, is actually labeled as cruel, immoral and perverse because people do not know him.

It is paradoxical that although people worship the Christ,  they classify him with such appalling labels.

Obviously, people who are unconscious and asleep only want an anthropomorphic, historic Christ of statues and unbreakable dogmas in whom they can easily fit all their clumsy, stale moral codes and all their prejudices and conditions.
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People can never conceive of the Intimate Christ [the Superhuman] in the heart of the human being.  The masses only worship the statue of Christ, that is all. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion: "The Christic Work"

The Superhuman can distinguish good from evil and evil from good; he grasps the sword of cosmic justice and is beyond both good and evil. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion: "The Superman"

"Myself I sacrifice to my love [the Superhuman], and my neighbor as myself"―thus runs the speech of all creators [initiates]. But all creators are hard." ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "On the Pitying"

"You do not seem, Signor Zanoni, to be one of the admirers of the dawning [French] Revolution [May 5, 1789 – November 9, 1799]. Perhaps you are prejudiced against the man [a follower of the upcoming rebellion] because you dislike the opinions?"

"What opinions?"

Glyndon paused, somewhat puzzled to define; but at length he said, "Nay, I must wrong you; for you, of all men, I suppose, cannot discredit the doctrine that preaches the infinite improvement of the human species."
​
"You are right; the few in every age improve the many; the many now may be as wise as the few were; but improvement is at a standstill, if you tell me that the many now are as wise as the few are."

"I comprehend you; you will not allow the law of universal equality!"

"Law! If the whole world conspired to enforce the falsehood they could not make it law. Level all conditions to-day, and you only smooth away all obstacles to tyranny to-morrow. A nation that aspires to equality is unfit for freedom. Throughout all creation, from the archangel to the worm, from Olympus to the pebble, from the radiant and completed planet to the nebula that hardens through ages of mist and slime into the habitable world, the first law of Nature is inequality."

"Harsh doctrine, if applied to states. Are the cruel disparities of life never to be removed?"

"Disparities of the physical life? Oh, let us hope so. But disparities of the intellectual and the moral, never! Universal equality of intelligence, of mind, of genius, of virtue!—no teacher left to the world! no men wiser, better than others,—were it not an impossible condition, what a hopeless prospect for humanity! No, while the world lasts, the sun will gild the mountain-top before it shines upon the plain. Diffuse all the knowledge the earth contains equally over all mankind to-day, and some men will be wiser than the rest to-morrow. And this is not a harsh, but a loving law,—the real law of improvement; the wiser the few in one generation, the wiser will be the multitude the next! [...]

"And these men [who would initiate the French Revolution], to commence their era of improvement and equality, are jealous even of the Creator. They would deny an intelligence,—a God!" said Zanoni, as if involuntarily. "Are you an artist, and, looking on the world, can you listen to such a dogma? Between God and genius there is a necessary link,—there is almost a correspondent language. Well said the Pythagorean, 'A good intellect is the chorus of divinity.'" ―Edward Bulwer Lytton, Zanoni: Book II, Chapter VII

Religious forms change according to the historical times and the races.  Each race needs its special religious form.

People need religion. People without religion are in fact totally barbarian, cruel, and pitiless. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic: "Religious Principles"

You higher men, learn this from me: in the market place [the public world] nobody believes in higher men. And if you want to speak there, very well! But the mob blinks: "We are all equal."

"You higher men"―thus blinks the mob―"there are no higher men, we are all equal, man is man; before God we are all equal."

Before God! But now this god has died [since Judeo-Christianity and Islam, the monotheistic religions, have degenerated: the initiatic teachings are lost]. And before the mob we do not want to be equal. You higher men, go away from the market place! ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "On the Higher Man"

​White and Black Magic

When the dark age arrived, the colleges of Initiation were closed.  This was a fatality.  Henceforth, as a matter of fact, the great black lodges, which were born during the archaic darkness of the ancient times, became more active. The limit of light is darkness. Next to every temple of light another of darkness exists, and where the light more brightly shines, there darkness becomes more dense.

The colleges of Initiation from Egypt, Greece, India, China, Mexico, Yucatan, Peru, Troy, Rome, Carthage, Chaldea, etc., had their dangerous antipodes, their fatal antitheses, tenebrous schools of black magic, fatal shadows of the light.

Those schools of black magic were the shadows of the colleges of Initiation. Thus, when the colleges were closed, these fatal schools became very active.

Therefore, it is not strange to find among these dens of the black lodge terms, sciences, and rituals similar to those that were used within the colleges of Initiation. This confuses the devotees of the path. By nature, the devotee is a lover of the “strange,” of the “exotic,” of the “distant,” and of the “impossible.” Therefore, when the devotees find a black magician of this type, speaking of the Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec, Inca, Greek, Chaldean, Persian mysteries, etc., they then ingenuously believe they have caught God by the beard and place themselves in the hands of the black magician, believing him to be white.

These magicians of darkness abound wherever there existed colleges of Initiation. They are the antitheses of those colleges and they speak like masters, always boasting about being initiates of those colleges. They never say anything that could arouse suspicion. They show that they are kind and humble, defend the good and the truth, adopt tremendously mystical attitudes, etc. Evidently, under such conditions the naïve and inexperienced devotee abandons the path of the razor’s edge and entrusts himself fully to those wolves in sheep’s clothing. That is a fatality. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony: "Fatality"

​The black magician cannot use the symbols of white magic without bringing down upon himself the forces of white magic, which would be fatal to his schemes. He must therefore distort the hierograms so that they typify the occult fact that he himself is distorting the principles for which the symbols stand. Black magic is not a fundamental art; it is the misuse of an art. Therefore it has no symbols of its own. It merely takes the emblematic figures of white magic, and by inverting and reversing them signifies that it is left-handed. In symbolism, an inverted figure always signifies a perverted power. ―Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages: "Ceremonial Magic and Sorcery"

​The Secret Teachings of Alchemy

The laws of attraction, of electricity, and of the yet more mysterious agency of that great principal of life, which, if drawn from the universe, would leave the universe a grave, were but the code in which the Theurgy of old sought the guides that led it to a legislation and science of its own. To rebuild on words the fragments of this history, it seems to me as if, in a solemn trance, I was led through the ruins of a city whose only remains were tombs. From the sarcophagus and the urn I awake the genius of the extinguished Torch, and so closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I scarcely know which of ye dictates to me,—O Love! O Death! ―Edward Bulwer Lytton, Zanoni: Book III: Chapter V

The secret of Sexual Magic was incommunicable. That is the great Arcanum. Those unfortunate ones who divulged the unspeakable secret were sentenced to death. They were taken to a stone patio, and before a millenary wall covered with crocodile skins and indecipherable hieroglyphics, their heads were cut off, their hearts were torn out, and their cursed ashes were flung to the four winds.

This brings to mind the great French poet Cazote, who died at the guillotine during the French Revolution.  This man prophesied his own death at a famous banquet along with the fate that was awaiting a certain group of noble initiates who contemplated divulging the great Arcanum [referenced in Edward Bulwer Lytton's Zanoni: Book I, Chapter 6].  For some he prophesied the guillotine, for others the dagger, poison, jail, exile.  His prophecies were fulfilled with absolute accuracy.  In the Middle Ages, anyone who divulged the great Arcanum died mysteriously, be it by shirts of Nessus, poisoned soaps that arrived as a birthday present at the door of the condemned, perfumed bouquets, or the dagger. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony: "The Seven Churches"

​Types of Initiation

What is this power that great souls contact? Esoteric tradition affirms that they take initiation of one kind or another; for there are two kinds, physical and nonphysical, which are usually taken together, though. sometimes only one and not the other is experienced. The physical initiation admits to the study of the esoteric wisdom acquired by generations of men who sought beneath the surface of existence, who sought the inner meaning of things rather than their outer forms; it admits the student to the fellowship and confidence of these men, and disposes them to share their knowledge and to accept the initiate as a co-worker or pupil.

The second form of initiation is declared to be a spiritual experience, wherein the soul establishes contact with the higher powers and is admitted to the fellowship of great souls on the Inner Planes. Of these two forms of initiation, sometimes one and sometimes another comes first; sometimes the physical, the lesser initiation, is the earlier, and the student is then taught how to prepare himself for the spiritual experience. In other cases it is the spiritual initiation that comes first, and then the student is shortly afterwards placed in the way of taking the physical initiation if he so desires; but esotericists are all agreed that, although. individuals may not necessarily take both initiations, the one always carries with it the opportunity for the other. ―Dion Fortune: The Training and Work of an Initiate: "Chapter II: The Way of Initiation," p. 27-28

Who Receives Initiations?

​In this day and age, the Masonic Lodge grants its degrees based on money and social status. Many sell initiations. Many are bestowed with initiations. Yet, all of this is exploitation and black magic.

Authentic degrees and authentic white initiations are received in the consciousness. These initiatic ceremonies are performed within the superior worlds.

Initiations are intimate realizations of the consciousness, which must not be revealed, or spoken about.

​No one can grant initiations to anyone. Initiation is attained through life itself.

In this day and age, everybody wants to be a master. Notwithstanding, we state that there is only one master, this is the inner Christ, which enlightens every human being who comes into the world. Thus, only Christ is the master. Only the resplendent “I Am” is the master. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 7"

Initiation is something very intimate to the Soul. The “I” does not receive initiations. Therefore, those who say, “I have so many initiations,” “I have such-and-such degrees,” are liars and fakes, because the “I” does not receive initiations or degrees. There are nine Initiations of Minor Mysteries and five important Initiations of Major Mysteries. The Soul is the one who receives the initiations. This is a very intimate matter; something that one must not go about speaking of, nor something that must be told to anyone. Indeed, all the initiations and degrees that many schools of the physical world confer have no value whatsoever in the superior worlds, because the masters of the White Lodge only recognize the legitimate initiations of the Soul as genuine. These are completely internal. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

​Can One Achieve Initiation without Knowing It?

Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

We are often asked whether it is possible to be initiated without knowing it. To this question we return an emphatic negative. On the face of it, it is absurd to think that we could be unconscious of receiving permanent extension of conscious​ness. It frequently happens, however, that a Master has accepted someone as his pupil without that person being immediately aware of it owing to the undeveloped state of his psychic faculties, and realisation dawns only after the training has progressed a certain distance. In such a case a psychic would be able to inform such a person that he had indeed found acceptance as a pupil of the Great White Brotherhood and had set foot on the Path that leads to Initiation, but he would be wrong in saying that he had been initiated. ―Dion Fortune: The Training and Work of an Initiate: "Chapter III: Preparation for Initiation," p. 34-35

What does he know of love who did not have to despise precisely what he loved! ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "On the Way of the Creator"

Qualities and Qualifications of the Initiates

The initiates of the occult sciences are taught to function upon these different levels, to use a terminology derived from the East; or, to express the same idea in Western words, to think in these different ways. Before we are ripe for a Master's teaching we have to conquer the physical and emotional levels for ourselves, for to this stage the normal state of evolution enables us to develop without any external interference. We must render the body an absolute servant which has no longer the power to make its needs imperative; it is to this end that much of the extreme asceticism of the Yoga methods of India is directed. We of the West, however, do not practise these methods; it is enough that the body should be rendered a voluntary collaborator and not an abject slave, Tum a man's desires towards a higher level, and they will automatically lift him there; as a great Initiate said: "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."

The emotions must flow freely, without conflict or distortion, in the channels which Nature has appointed for them before they can be lifted to a higher level. You cannot sublimate a pathology.

The direction of the energies of life must be removed from the domain of the desires to that of the will. Until this is done there can be no steady progression in any direction, for the desires are called forth from without, not directed from within, and vary with the external stimulus. ―Dion Fortune: The Training and Work of an Initiate: "Chapter I: Laying the Foundations," p. 21-22

...train your [sexual] energy flows until you gain self-control [over lust and orgasm],
And after receiving the three superior initiations, transmute the ensuing desire,
To perfect the nature of the four levels of joy,
For six months or until signs of achievement appear in the body.

Unite male and female energies,
Developing the method of mixing higher and lower energies,
Female assisting male and male assisting female,
The principles of each being separately practiced.

Intensify and elevate your practice, broadening the horizons of your bliss;
But if bliss and Emptiness [comprehension of selflessness, the absolute absence of desire] are not identified,
Profitlessly you stray from the path of Tantra:
Apprehend the intrinsic unity of bliss and Emptiness.

Guard the samaya [oath of chastity] of Guru and Dakini like your eyes;
In various skillful ways enjoy the five sacred substances;
Practice to perfection the skill of retaining your seed-essence [semen]
Be attentive to obstacles and hostile powers [your egos, defects, vices];
If the samaya [chastity] is impaired strive to restore it.

About the body: do not let it slip into old habits [of lust and orgasm]
Or you will become like ordinary men and women [who are animals];
With the confidence of the deity, meditate charged with power
And inform your focal points of energy as a principal and his circle of deities.

About speech: concentrate upon mantra and energy flows -
Without energy control your sexual activity is fornication [lustful sex];
Properly execute the exercises of 'drawing up' [the spine] and 'saturating' [brain and heart]
And with the [iron] nails of your imagination apply an hermetic seal [to prevent any loss of energy].
―Yeshe Tsogyal, Fruition and Buddhahood

​Gnosis is a two-edged sword, it defends and gives life to the humble and virtuous; yet, it wounds and destroys the curious and impure. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 16"

A great equilibrium in the consciousness is necessary in order to become an initiate; thus, it is necessary to cultivate powers but not to covet them; to aspire to initiation but not to covet it; to know how to find virtues within the heart of the wicked and to know how to find evilness within the heart of the righteous." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 9"

For every step that we take in the development of our occult powers, we must take a thousand steps on the path of sanctity. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 2"

When judgmental people try to evaluate the daily lives of the great initiates, they always judge mistakenly, since judgmental people do not comprehend the extreme simplicity of the great initiates. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "The Apostolate"

We need to have the mind of a child in order to enter into the Major Mysteries. We need to be like children in our minds and hearts. We need to be perfect as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. The great mysteries are not achievable through vain intellectualisms; the Major Mysteries are achievable with the heart of a child. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 2"

We do not worship noble titles, nor resounding titles like "doctor, lawyer, guru, master, elder brother, avatar," etc., because among Gnostics we are all friends, and Aquarius is the house of friends. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Meetings' Regulations"

Ethics and Dangers in Spiritual Schools

The disciple who wants to enter the straight, narrow and difficult path that leads us to the Light has to withdraw from all spiritual schools.  Those schools are filled with "sublime crimes."  Those schools are golden cages filled with "very beautiful poisonous vipers." Mystic evilness is very abundant in those schools.
​
​Under the shelter of the divine phrase “Universal Fraternity” the worst crimes registered in the penal code are committed.

It is distressful for us to state this, but complacency with crime is also a crime.  It is as bad to be silent when one must talk as to talk when one must be silent.  We would like to be silent, yet one not only pays karma for the evil things that were done, but also for the good things that were left undone when these things could have been done.  Therefore, we cannot be silent about this.  We love humanity very much, thus we need to point out crime, to touch the wound with the finger in order not to fall into the crime of being complacent with crime. If we did not say these things we would put a horrible karma (the karma of accomplices and cowards) on ourselves.  So, the truth, although harsh, is the best friend.

All spiritual schools, orders and lodges are delectable gardens within which stand out nests of dangerous vipers and poisonous flowers filled with perfume.  Ineffable enchantments that lead us to the abyss, as well as sublime theories that can lead us to the precipice, and sweet smiles that carry us to disgrace exist within those schools where their devotees are filled with hypocrisy and fanaticism.  Indeed, the opium of theories is more dangerous than death.

Spiritual devotees hug with one hand and with the other they stab the back with the sharp dagger of treason.

Spiritual devotees always cover their worst evilness with smiles and very sweet words. We do not have the intention of criticizing any person in particular because that is wrong; this is why we speak in a general manner for the good of the Great Work of the Father.

We have known horrible cases, i.e. we knew the case of a certain hypocritical Pharisee who passed himself off as Jesus Christ; he founded an order of black magic and later he alleged that he was uniting all the schools, orders, sects, creeds and lodges within a universal fraternity; and he was the center of it all, naturally.

We knew about another subject who took the name of K. H. in order to declare that he was an Avatar, and that he should reunite all the schools under his scepter.  All these types of opportunist subjects tend to found black lodges under the shelter of the beautiful phrase “Universal Fraternity.”

We cannot remain silent about this because complacency with crime is also a crime. Almost all the spiritual devotees are totally petrified by their intellect; almost all of them remained frozen with the spiritual theories of the nineteenth century, and filled with pride, fear and arrogance, reject the secret doctrine of our Lord the Christ.

Therefore, we advise our disciples to be very careful; it is better to withdraw from these types of gentlemen, because they are dangerous and deceitful. Whosoever betrays the Christ falls into the abyss.

In these times, many false Christs are appearing, and those who affiliate with them commit the crime of high treason.

Jesus Christ is the leader of all souls; this great Master lives in Oriental Tibet.

Do not forget that crime is hidden within the incense of prayer; yes, crime is hidden within the mixture of perfumes and litanies. False Christs have sublime appearances.

To state that "this is good" or "that is evil," is an easy matter, yet to have cognizance of the good from the evil and the evil from the good is very difficult.

Black lodges are filled with sincere but mistaken people; the abyss is filled with people with very good intentions.

When we enter into the true path of initiation, then all the spiritual devotees turn against us. Christ was crucified by the spiritualists of his time.

Many enter the path and thereafter they no longer want to continue working in order to fulfill the needs of every good citizen. Those wretched beings neglect their duties towards their family, the world and their own selves. We have heard them say phrases like: "Money is vain," "This is the world of Maya (illusion)," "I am no longer interested in the things of the world," etc. This is how these wretched disciples fail because they do not know how to fulfill their duties. This is how these devotees of the path move away from initiation, precisely because they do not know how to fulfill their duties as simple citizens.

Our disciples will now comprehend why we stated that crime is also hidden within the incense of prayer.

The one who enters the path must first of all be a model spouse, a model father/mother, a model child, a model citizen, a magnificent grandson/daughter and a patriarchal grandfather/mother, etc. The one who does not know how to fulfill his duties as a simple citizen cannot tread the path of the great mysteries. Many disciples forget the good manners of a sincere and honorable gentleman/lady and become truly irresponsible and even dangerous individuals.

People that had never stolen became thieves of books and money when they entered the path. The younger devotees who enter the spiritual path steal books, or they borrow them and never return them, etc. Others cheat their disciples, they borrow money from them and thereafter they steal it, etc.

Under the shade of the word 'fraternity' all the crimes mentioned in the penal code are committed. There are those who take other people’s money and allege that the money is for good deeds. There are those who criticize those who work, supposedly because everything is vanity, etc.

This is how devotees close the path that leads to the great mysteries to themselves.

On the path, there are many devotees who commit adultery, justifying themselves with phrases like these, "My spouse is refractory to the spiritual teachings," "The other partner I have agrees with my ideas," "The other is spiritual, and is the only one with whom I can practice sexual magic in order to attain in-depth realization," etc., and a thousand other mystical phrases. This is how adulterers shut the doors of the temple unto themselves.

Many devotees of the path use sexual magic as a pretext to seduce many naïve devotees; this is how these mystical adulterers withdraw from the altar of initiation and fall into the abyss.

Sexual magic can only be practiced between husband and wife in legitimately constituted homes.

Many devotees steal the neighbor’s spouse supposedly because the law of karma commanded it. All of these crimes have led thousands of spiritual devotees into the abyss.

When we went to a certain country to fulfill a mission, we were assaulted by certain spiritual elements who visited us in order to criticize our books, to give us imperative orders and to insult us in our own home. In ordinary life, no gentleman/lady would dare to enter into someone else’s home in order to give orders and to insult the owner of the house, because they would find themselves involved in a domestic scene and in a problem with the police. Unfortunately, the devotees of the path fall into these states of terrible irresponsibility.

Some even abandon the most basic laws of urban life and wander around the streets with their clothes dirty and in the most complete untidiness, and as a pretext they boast of being spiritual and being in disdain of the vanities of the world. However, this is called degeneration; this is how, with their pessimistic exposure, the devotees of the path drive many people away from the path.

We must always dress in a decent manner, not because of pride, or vanity, but simply because of respect to our neighbor.

The system in order to achieve in-depth self-realization has nothing to do with letting our beard or hair grow, or going around dirty on the streets. The one who wants to attain self-realization must start by being an upright and decent gentleman or lady. 

The one who wants to attain self-realization has to practice sexual magic and tread the path of the most perfect sanctity.

Within most of the spiritual schools devotees speak ill of their fellowmen and argue like parrots. This is not right. No one has the right to judge anyone, because no one is perfect. Christ already told us, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again…' etc. Matthew 7:1-2.  Thus, we do not have the right to criticize the neighbor’s defects. Gossip and slander have filled the world with pain and bitterness; defamation is worse than stealing. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries: "Preparation for Initiation 1"

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We are not against anyone; we only reveal and indicate where the danger is. —Samael Aun Weor, Types of Spiritual Schools

A knowledge of even the elements of esoteric science leads to a complete change of all of our values. We see that things we considered of supreme importance are not the vital points we thought they were; we see that things we did not think mattered at all are the real strategic centres of our lives. —Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate

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Definitions, History and Traditions

The very doctrine which centres about the immediate personal contact with the Divine, that is to say, a highly personal and intimate form of knowledge, is conceived as traditional wisdom. The fact is, however, that the idea of Jewish mysticism from the start combined the conception of a knowledge which by its very nature is difficult to impart and therefore secret, with that of a knowledge which is the secret tradition of chosen spirits or adepts. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Kabbalah, it must be remembered, is not the name of a certain dogma or system, but rather the general term applied to a whole religious movement. This movement, with some of whose stages and tendencies we shall have to acquaint ourselves, has been going on from Talmudic times to the present day; its development has been uninterrupted, though by no means uniform, and often dramatic. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

It is a remarkable fact that the very term Kabbalah under which it has become best known, is derived from an historical concept. Kabbalah means literally “tradition”, in itself an excellent example of the paradoxical nature of mysticism to which I have referred before. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The secret of the success of the Kabbalah lies in the nature of its relation to the spiritual heritage of rabbinical Judaism. This relation differs from that of rationalist philosophy, in that it is more deeply and in a more vital sense connected with the main forces active in Judaism. Undoubtedly both the mystics and the philosophers completely transform the structure of ancient Judaism; both have lost the simple relation to Judaism, that naiveté which speaks to us from the classical documents of Rabbinical literature. Classical Judaism expressed itself: it did not reflect upon itself. By contrast, to the mystics and the philosophers of a later stage of religious development Judaism itself has become problematical. Instead of simply speaking their minds, they tend to produce an ideology of Judaism, an ideology moreover which comes to the rescue of tradition by giving it a new interpretation. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Revelation and Mystical Experience

Revelation, for instance, is to the mystic not only a definite historical occurrence which, at a given moment in history, puts an end to any further direct relation between mankind and God. With no thought of denying Revelation as a fact of history, the mystic still conceives the source of religious knowledge and experience which bursts forth from his own heart as being of equal importance for the conception of religious truth. In other words, instead of the one act of Revelation, there is a constant repetition of this act. This new Revelation, to himself or to his spiritual master, the mystic tries to link up with the sacred texts of the old; hence the new interpretation given to the canonical texts and sacred books of the great religions. To the mystic, the original act of Revelation to the community―the, as it were, public revelation of Mount Sinai, to take one instance―appears as something whose true meaning has yet to unfold itself; the secret revelation is to him the real and decisive one. And thus the substance of the canonical texts, like that of all other religious values, is melted down and given another form as it passes through the fiery stream of the mystical consciousness. It is hardly surprising that, hard as the mystic may try to remain within the confines of his religion, he often consciously or unconsciously approaches, or even transgresses, its limits. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

​The documents of religion are therefore not conceived as expressing a separate and distinct world of religious truth and reality, but rather as giving a simplified description of the relations which exist between the ideas of philosophy. The story of Abraham and Sarah, of Lot and his wife, of the Twelve Tribes, etc., are simply descriptions of the relation between matter and form, spirit and matter, or the faculties of the mind. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The historical aspects of religion have a meaning for the mystic chiefly as symbols of acts which he conceives as being divorced from time, or constantly repeated in the soul of every man. Thus the exodus from Egypt, the fundamental event of our history, cannot, according to the mystic, have come to pass once only and in one place; it must correspond to an event which takes place in ourselves, an exodus from an inner Egypt in which we all are slaves. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

​Supernatural illumination also plays its part in the history of Kabbalism and innovations are made not only on the basis of new interpretations of ancient lore but as a result of fresh inspiration or revelation, or even of a dream. A sentence from Isaac Hacohen of Soria (about 1270) illustrates the twin sources recognized by the Kabbalists as authoritative. “In our generation there are but a few, here and there, who have received tradition from the ancients … or have been vouchsafed the grace of divine inspiration.” Tradition and intuition are bound together and this would explain why Kabbalism could be deeply conservative and intensely revolutionary. Even “traditionalists” do not shrink from innovations, sometimes far-reaching, which are confidently set forth as interpretations of the ancients or as revelation of a mystery which Providence had seen fit to conceal from previous generations.  ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Thy whole body will be seized by an extremely strong trembling, so that thou wilt think that surely thou art about to die, because thy soul, overjoyed with its knowledge, will leave thy body. And be thou ready at this moment consciously to choose death, and then thou shalt know that thou hast come far enough to receive the influx. And then wishing to honor the glorious Name by serving it with the life of body and soul, veil thy face and be afraid to look at God. Then return to the matters of the body, rise and eat and drink a little, or refresh thyself with a pleasant odor, and restore thy spirit to its sheath until another time, and rejoice at thy lot and know that God loveth thee! ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The Body, Soul, and Spirit of Judaism

The Jews had three sacred books: the first is the body of doctrine, that is to say, the Bible. The second is the soul of the doctrine, the Talmud, where the national Jewish soul is. The third is the spirit of the doctrine, the Zohar, where the entire rabbinical Kabbalah is.

The Bible, the body of doctrine, is written in code. Thus, if we want to study the Bible by combining verses, we will proceed in an ignorant, empirical, and absurd manner. We find the key to interpret the Bible only in the third book, in the Zohar, written by Simon Ben Jochai, the great enlightened rabbi.  ―Samael Aun Weor, Alchemical Symbolism of the Nativity of Christ 

The Foundations of Kabbalah

Aggadah: The Narrative Tradition

To understand the ways in which Kabbalah, and particularly the Zohar, finds it home within the earlier tradition, we need to distinguish five elements that are present in the legacy of medieval Jews received from the Judaism of the Talmudic age. [...] The first of the five elements is הַגָּדָה aggadah, the narrative tradition, contained in the Talmud and the various works of Midrash. Midrash is a hermeneutical term, rendered both as 'inquiry' and 'homiletics,' indicating a way of delving into Scripture that tends towards fanciful and extended rereadings. Much of aggadah is legendary in content, expanding biblical history and recreating the biblical landscape in the setting of the rabbinic world. But aggadah also includes tales of the rabbis themselves and teachings of wisdom in many forms: maxims, parables, folk traditions, and so forth. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

​What makes [Kabbalists] differ from the philosophers is the fact that for them the Aggadah is not just a dead letter. They live in a world historically continuous with it, and they are able, therefore, to enhance it, though in the spirit of mysticism. Aggadic productivity has been a constant element of Kabbalistic literature, and only when the former disappears will the latter, too, be doomed to extinction. ―​Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Halakhah: Jewish Law

The second element is the tradition of הֲלָכָה halakhah, the legal and normative body of Talmudic teaching, the chief subject of study for Jews throughout the medieval era, and thus the main curriculum on which most Kabbalists themselves were educated. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

To the philosopher, the Halakhah either had no significance at all, or one that was calculated to diminish rather than to enhance its prestige in his eyes. Entirely different was the attitude of the Kabbalists. For them the Halakhah never became a province of thought in which they felt themselves strangers. Right from the beginning and with growing determination, they sought to master the world of the Halakhah as a whole and in every detail. From the outset, an ideology of the Halakhah is one of their aims. But in their interpretation of the religious commandments these are not represented as allegories of more or less profound ideas, or as pedagogical measures, but rather as the performance of a secret rite (or mystery in the sense in which the term was used by the Ancients). ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Piyyut: Liturgical Poetry

A third element of the rabbinic legacy is the liturgical tradition. While liturgical praxis was codified within halakhah and thus in some ways is a subset of it, the texts recited in worship, including a large corpus of liturgical poetry, or פיוט piyyut, constitutes a literary genre of their own. Medieval writers, including the mystics of both Spain and Askhenaz, were much concerned with establishing the precise, proper wording for each prayer. The texts of the prayerbook, mostly fixed by compendia dating from the tenth century, became in the Middle Ages the object of commentaries, many of which sought to find their authors' own theologies reflected in these venerated and widely known texts by the ancient rabbis. This is especially true of the Kabbalists, who devoted much attention to the כַּוָּנָה kavvanah, or inner meaning, of liturgical prayer. While not formally canonized or seen as the product of divine revelation, as were the books of Scripture, the liturgical texts were regarded as sufficiently holy and mysterious to deserve and require commentary. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

Merkabah Mysticism

The fourth strand of earlier tradition is that of מרכבה merkavah mysticism. Merkavah designates a form of visionary mystical praxis that reaches back into the Hellenistic era but was still alive as late as tenth-century Babylonia. Its roots lie close to the ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature, except that here the voyager taken up into the heavens is usually offered a private encounter with the divine glory, one that does not involve metahistorical predictions. Those who 'go down into the merkavah' sought visions that took them before the throne of God, allowing them to travel through the divine 'palaces' (היכלות heikhalot), realms replete with angels, and at the height of ecstasy, to participate in or even lead the angelic chorus. The term merkavah ('chariot') links this tradition to the opening vision of Ezekiel, which was seen as the great paradigm for all such visionary experiences and accounts. It is also connected to the קְדֻשָּׁה qedushah formula ('Holy, holy, holy is Y-H-W-H of hosts [יהוה צבאות Iod-Chavah Sabaoth], the whole earth is filled with His glory!') of Isaiah 6, because it is this refrain that most merkavah voyagers recount hearing the angels sing as they stand with them in the heavenly heights. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

Sefer Yetsirah

The fifth and final element of this ancient legacy is the hardest to define, partly because it hangs on the thread of a slim body of text, but also because it contains elements that seem contradictory to one another. I refer to the speculative-magical tradition that reached medieval Jewry through the little book called ספר יצירה‎ Sefer Yetsirah and various other small texts, mostly magical in content, that are associated with it. Sefer Yetsirah has been shown to be a very ancient work, close in spirit to aspects of Greek esotericism that flourished in the late Hellenistic era. While the practice associated with this school of thought is magical-theurgic, even including the attempt to make a גולם golem [an anthropomorphic being fashioned from inanimate or amorphous material, such as mud or clay, while imbibed with vitality and life] its chief text contains the most abstract worldview to be found within the legacy of ancient Judaism. By contemplating the core meaning of both numbers and letters, it reaches toward a notion of cosmic unity that underlies diversity, of an abstract deity that serves as a cosmic center, in whom (perhaps better: in which) all being is rooted. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

According to Eliphas Levi, the three greatest books of Qabbalism are the Sepher Yetzirah, The Book of Formation; the Sepher ha Zohar, The Book of Splendor; and the Apocalypse, The Book of Revelation. The dates of the writing of these books are by no means thoroughly established. Qabbalists declare that the Sepher Yetzirah was written by Abraham. Although it is by far the oldest of the Qabbalistic books, it was probably from the pen of the Rabbi Akiba, A.D. 120. ―Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages  ​

​Sefer Yetsirah was the subject of a wide variety of commentaries in the Middle Ages, with rationalists as well as mystics claiming it as their own. In the twelfth century, the language and style of thought formed in the work became central to the first generations of kabbalistic writing, as reflected by commentaries on it and by the penetration of its terminology into other works as well. ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

Kabbalah must be seen as a dynamic mix of these five elements, with one or another sometimes dominating. It was especially the first and last elements―the aggadic-mythical element and the abstract-speculative-magical tradition―that seemed to vie for the leading role in forging the emerging kabbalistic way of thought.  ―Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar

The Origins of the Zohar

The Sepher ha Zohar presumably was written by Simeon ben Jochai, a disciple of Akiba. Rabbi Simeon was sentenced to death about A.D. 161 by Lucius Verus, co-regent of the Emperor Marc Aurelius Antoninus. He escaped with his son and, hiding in a cave, transcribed the manuscript of the Zohar with the assistance of Elias, who appeared to them at intervals. Simeon was twelve years in the cave, during which time he evolved the complicated symbolism of the "Greater Face" and the "Lesser Face." While discoursing with disciples Rabbi Simeon expired, and the "Lamp of Israel" was extinguished. His death and burial were accompanied by many supernatural phenomena. The legend goes on to relate that the secret doctrines of Qabbalism had been in existence since the beginning of the world, but that Rabbi Simeon was the first man permitted to reduce them to writing. Twelve hundred years later the books which he had compiled were discovered and published for the benefit of humanity by Moses de León. The probability is that Moses de León himself compiled the Zohar about A.D. 1305, drawing his material from the unwritten secrets of earlier Jewish mystics. ―Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages  

Interpretations of the Zohar

...all Jewish mystics, from the Therapeutae, whose doctrine was described by Philo of Alexandria, to the latest Hasid, are at one in giving a mystical interpretation to the Torah [the first five books of Moses or Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy]; the Torah is to them a living organism animated by a secret life which streams and pulsates below the crust of its literal meaning; every one of the innumerable strata of this hidden region corresponds to a new and profound meaning of the Torah. The Torah, in other words, does not consist merely of chapters, phrases and words; rather is it to be regarded as the living incarnation of the divine wisdom which eternally sends out new rays of light. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Rabbi Simeon says: "Woe to the man who says that the Torah came to relate stories, simply and plainly, and simpleton tales about Esau and Laban and the like. If it was so, even at the present day we could produce a Torah from simplistic matters, and perhaps even nicer ones than those. If the Torah came to exemplify worldly matters, even the rulers of the world have among them things that are superior. If so, let us follow them and produce from them a Torah in the same manner. It must be that all items in the Torah are of a superior nature and are uppermost secrets. 

"Come and behold: the world above and the world below are measured with one scale. The children of Yisrael below correspond to the lofty angels above.  It is written about the lofty angels: 'who makes the winds his messengers' (Psalms 104:4). When they descend downwards, they are donned with the vestments of this world. If they had not acquired the dress for this world, they would not be able to exist in this world, and the world would not be able to stand them. And if this is so for the angels, how much more so is it for the Torah that created these messengers and all the worlds, that exist due to her. Once it was brought down to this world, if it had not donned all these covering garments of this world, which are the stories and simplistic tales, the world would not have been able to tolerate it."  ―Zohar

The Tree of Life

It [the Tree of Life] is a glyph, that is to say a composite symbol, which is intended to represent the cosmos in its entirety and the soul of man as related thereto; and the more we study it, the more we see that it is an amazingly adequate representation; we use it as the engineer or the mathematician uses his sliding-rule, to scan and calculate the intricacies of existence, visible and invisible, in external nature or the hidden depth of the soul. ―Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

​Jewish mysticism in its various forms represents an attempt to interpret the religious values of Judaism in terms of mystical values. It concentrates upon the idea of the living God who manifests himself in the acts of Creation, Revelation and Redemption. Pushed to its extreme, the mystical meditation on this idea gives birth to the conception of a sphere, a whole realm of divinity, which underlies the world of our sense-data and which is present and active in all that exists. This is the meaning of what the Kabbalists call the world of the ‘Sefiroth’. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

According to Luria, God was compelled to make room for the world by, as it were, abandoning a region within Himself, a kind of mystical primordial space from which He withdrew in order to return to it in the act of creation and revelation. The first act of En-Sof, the Infinite Being, is therefore not a step outside but a step inside, a movement of recoil, of falling back upon oneself, of withdrawing into oneself. Instead of emanation we have the opposite, contraction. The God who revealed himself in firm contours was superseded by one who descended deeper into the recesses of His own Being, who concentrated Himself into Himself, and had done so from the very beginning of creation. [...]

One is tempted to interpret this withdrawal of God into his own Being in terms of Exile, of banishing Himself from His totality into profound seclusion... The first act of all is not an act of revelation but one of limitation. Only in the second act does God send out a ray of His light and begin his revelation, or rather his unfolding as God the Creator, in the primordial space of His own creation. More than that, every new act of emanation and manifestation is preceded by one of concentration and retraction. In other words, the cosmic process becomes two-fold. Every stage involves a double strain, i.e. the light which streams back into God and that which flows out of Him, and but for this perpetual tension, this ever repeated effort with which God holds Himself back, nothing in the world would exist. ―​Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The consensus of Kabbalistic opinion regards the mystical way to God as a reversal of the procession by which we have emanated from God. To know the stages of the creative process is also to know the stages of one’s own return to the root of all existence. In this sense, the interpretation of Maaseh Bereshith, the esoteric doctrine of creation, has always formed one of the main preoccupations of Kabbalism. It is here that Kabbalism comes nearest to Neoplatonic thought, of which it has been said with truth that 'procession and reversion together constitute a single movement, the diastole-systole, which is the life of the universe.' Precisely this is also the belief of the Kabbalist.​ ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Abulafia calls his method “The Path of the Names,” in contrast to the Kabbalists of his time, whose doctrine concerning the realization of the divine attributes it referred to as “The Path of the Sefiroth.”  Only together the two paths form the whole of the Kabbalah, the Path of the Sefiroth the ‘rabbinical’ and that of the Names, the ‘prophetic’ Kabbalah. The student of Kabbalah is to begin with the contemplation of the ten Sefiroth. These, indeed, during meditation are to become objects of quickened imagination rather than objects of an external knowledge acquired by merely learning their names as attributes or even symbols of God. For in the Sefiroth, too, according to Abulafia, there are revealed the ‘profundities of the intellectus agens’, that cosmic power which for the mystic coincides with the splendor of the Shekhinah [the divine feminine that raises and elevates the chosen people of Israel back towards the truth]. Only from there is he to proceed to the twenty-two letters which represent a deeper stage of penetration. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The Spiritual Power of Language, Symbols, and Mathematics

Language in its purest form, that is, Hebrew, according to the Kabbalists, reflects the fundamental spiritual nature of the world; in other words, it has a mystical value. Speech reaches God because it comes from God. Man’s common language, whose prima facie function, indeed, is only of an intellectual nature, reflects the creative language of God. All creation―and this is an important principle of most Kabbalists―is, from the point of view of God, nothing but an expression of His hidden self that begins and ends by giving itself a name, the holy name of God, the perpetual act of creation. All that lives is an expression of God’s language,―and what is it that Revelation can reveal in the last resort if not the name of God? ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

In Kabbalah, everything is numbers and mathematics. The number is holy and infinite. In the universe everything is measurement and weight. For the Gnostics, God is a geometrist. Mathematics are sacred. No one was admitted into the school of Pythagoras if they were not knowledgeable about mathematics, music, etc. Numbers are sacred. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah  

All esoteric systems use a symbolic method of notation in their teachings. Each of the symbols employed indicates a spiritual potency, and the ideas associated with them indicate its method of function; their interrelation represents the interaction of these forces. If we have the key to one symbol-system we can readily equate it with all the others, for fundamentally they are the same. ―Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate  

These cosmic symbols are further represented by the letters of a sacred language, which, in the Western Tradition, is Hebrew. Out of these letters are formed the Sacred Names and Words of Power, which are simply algebraical formulas resuming potencies. Thus is the universe represented to the initiate, and he is able to trace the correlation between its parts and see what invisible realities are throwing their shadows upon the world of Maya, illusion. ―Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate

It is not required of those who would use the Qabalah as their Yoga that they should acquire any extensive knowledge of the Hebrew language; all they need is to be able to read and write the Hebrew characters. The modern Qabalah has been pretty thoroughly naturalized in the English language, but it retains, and must ever retain, all its Words of Power in Hebrew, which is the sacred language of the West just as Sanskrit is the sacred language of the East. There are those who have objected to the free employment of Sanskrit terms in occult literature, and no doubt they will object even more strongly to the employment of Hebrew characters, but their use is unavoidable, for every letter in Hebrew is also a number, and the numbers to which words add up are not only an important clue to their significance, but can also be used to express the relationships existing between different ideas and potencies. ―Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

Gematria, Notarikon, and Temurah

...in the literature of the Hasidism, prominence is given for the first time to certain techniques of mystical speculation which are popularly supposed to represent the heart and core of Kabbalism, such as Gematria, i.e. the calculation of the numerical value of Hebrew words and the search for connections with other words or phrases of equal value; Notarikon, or interpretation of the letters of a word as abbreviations of whole sentences; and Temurah, or interchange of letters according to certain systematic rules. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Basing himself upon the abstract and non-corporeal nature of script, [Abraham Abulafia] develops a theory of the mystical contemplation of letters and their configurations, as the constituents of God’s name. For this is the real and, if I may say so, the peculiarly Jewish object of mystical contemplation: The Name of God, which is something absolute, because it reflects the hidden meaning and totality of existence; the Name through which everything else acquires its meaning and which yet to the human mind has no concrete, particular meaning of its own. In short, Abulafia believes that whoever succeeds in making this great Name of God, the least concrete and perceptible thing in the world, the object of his meditation, is on the way to true mystical ecstasy. ―Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

This science [of mystical combination] is an instrument which leads nearer to prophecy than any other discipline of learning. A man who gains his understanding of the essentials of reality from books is called Hakham, a scholar. If he obtains it from the Kabbalah, that is to say from one who has himself obtained it from the contemplation of the divine names or from another Kabbalist, then he is called Mevin, that is, one who has insight, but if his understanding is derived from his own heart, from reflecting upon what he knows of reality, then he is called Daatan, that is, a gnostic. He whose understanding is such as to combine all three, to wit, scholarly erudition, insight obtained from a genuine Kabbalist, and wisdom from reflecting deeply upon things, of him I am not indeed going to say that he deserves to be called a prophet, especially if he has not yet been touched by the pure intellect, or if touched [that is to say, in ecstasy] does not yet know by whom. ―Abraham Abulafia, The Knowledge of the Messiah and the Meaning of the Redeemer

Practical Mysticism and Spirituality

Kabbalistic studies must be combined with work on oneself. One must be conscious of these studies, for it they remain only in the intellect they will be lost when one dies. Yet, if one is conscious of them, the knowledge will manifest itself from childhood. ―Samael Aun Weor

The esotericist, when endeavoring to formulate his philosophy for communication to others, is confronted by the fact that his knowledge of the higher forms of existence is obtained by a process other than thought; and this process only commences when thought is left behind. ―Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

The Qabalistic cosmology is the Christian Gnosis. Without it we have an incomplete system in our religion, and it is this incomplete system which has been the weakness of Christianity. ―Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

Intellectual and Intuitive Kabbalah

​There are two kinds of Kabbalists: intellectual Kabbalists and intuitive Kabbalists. The intellectual Kabbalists are black magicians. The intuitive Kabbalists are white magicians.

​On such a simple thing, scholars have written millions of volumes and theories that would turn anyone crazy who had the bad taste of becoming intellectualized with that entire arsenal. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

The intellect is a tool that is useful when placed under the service of the Spirit. But when the intellect seeks to control the Spirit, the intellect becomes destructive. Therefore, the intuitive Kabbalist is the one who learns through the experience of the consciousness. The intuitive Kabbalist learns directly, without opinions or theories. This one seeks a radical intellectual culture: a comprehensive knowledge of esotericism that is qualified by direct investigation.

In order to be a complete Kabbalist, one has to study; one has to record the teachings in the memory. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

The Synthesis

The objective of studying the Kabbalah is to be skilled for work in the internal worlds... One who does not comprehend remains confused in the internal worlds. Kabbalah is the basis in order to understand the language of these worlds. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

​One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabbalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers; a philosophy simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology summed up by counting on one's fingers; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant's hand; ten ciphers and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,―these are all the elements of the Kabbalah. These are the elementary principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word that created the world! ―Albert Pike, in Eliphas Levi's Transcendental Magic 

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Gods and demons live in eternal struggle. The Gods defend the doctrine of chastity. The demons hate chastity.  In sex, the root of the conflict between Gods and demons is found. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Great Battle”

No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, "The old is better.” ―​Luke 5:36-39 

​Lust and Sexual Energy

​What Constitutes Masturbation?

Masturbation: From the Latin words manstuprare, from manus "hand" (as in manual) + stuprare "defile" (oneself), from stuprum "defilement, dishonor," related to stupere "to be stunned, stupefied" (as in stupid). ―​Gnostic Glossary: Glorian Publishing

What is Semen?

Unfortunately, women, like men, lose the divine forces when they commit the error of reaching that which is called "orgasm" or "spasm" in organic biology. ―​Samael Aun Weor, “Woman’s Saintly Predestination”

Religions on Masturbation and Sexual Transmutation

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
 
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
 
And if thy right eye [that looks at pornographic images] offend thee, pluck it out [eradicate your desire], and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. ―Matthew 5:27-29

And if any man's seed of copulation go out from him [or the woman’s as well] then he shall wash all his flesh in water [of transmutation], and be unclean until the even [the death of the ego in the meditation]. ―Leviticus 15:16

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water [seminal matter] and of the Spirit [the creative energy], he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
 
That which is born of the flesh [through orgasm] is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit [through chastity] is spirit. —John 3:5-6
​
Furthermore, if in these instants [sexual union] the woman teaches the man the necessity of being "continent," if instead of reaching the final consummation of immense passion she has the valor to restrain the animal impulse, to avoid that which in organic physiology, or biology, is termed "orgasm" or "spasm,” he could retain those mystical forces of the Third Logos, of Mahachoan, of the Hindustani Shiva. With such subtle forces, she will be able to create within herself something different. She will be able to convert herself into a victor. She will pass to an extraordinary level of Being. She will never again have misery or pain, for her there will be no suffering. Many faculties will emerge in all of her organism; she will be completely different. A woman thus transformed by her own creative energies would be able to transform man and transform the world, because woman has a unique power: to form beings in her own womb. —Samael Aun Weor, “Woman’s Saintly Predestination”

I [Shiva] am the semen, Sakti [the Goddess] is the generative fluid; when they are [perfectly] combined in the body [through this practice], then the body of the Yogi becomes divine [immortal].
 
Ejaculation of semen [orgasm] brings death, preserving it within brings life. Therefore, one should make sure to retain the semen within. ―Siva Samhita: “Preserve the Semen”

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. ―1 Thessalonians 3:3-5

And if thy right hand [used in masturbation] offend thee, cut it off [abandon your lusts], and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members [your ego] should perish, and not that thy whole body [soul] should be cast into hell. ―​Matthew 5:30

​Masturbation without Orgasm

Without energy control your sexual activity is fornication... ―Yeshe Tsogyal

Wherever we direct attention, we expend creative energy. ―​Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

​Sexual Fantasy and Impotence

Sexual fantasy produces impotence of a psychosexual type. People with that kind of illness have normal erections; they are apparently normal men, but in the moment in which they try to connect the penis and the vulva, the erection abates making the phallus fall, leaving the man in the most horrible state of desperation. They have lived in sexual fantasy and when they really find themselves facing the crude sexual reality which has nothing to do with fantasy, they become confused and are unable to properly respond to reality. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

​Incubi and Succubi

Incubi and succubi are formed from the sperm of those who perform the imaginative anti-natural act of masturbation (in thoughts or desires).

And because it comes only from the imagination, it is not genuine sperm (material) but corrupt salt.

Only semen that comes from an organ selected by Nature for its development can germinate in a body.

When sperm does not come from appropriate matter (nutritious substratum) it will not produce anything good, but will generate something useless.

For this reason, incubi and succubi that originate from corrupt semen are harmful and useless in accordance with the natural order of things.

These germs which are formed in the imagination are born of Amore Heress, which signifies the type of love whereby a man imagines a woman, or vice-versa, in order to copulate with the image created within the sphere of his mind.

The expulsion of a useless, ethereal fluid results from this act, incapable of producing offspring but instead bringing larvae into existence.

Imagination used in this way gives birth to an exuberant shamelessness which, if pursued, can make a man impotent and a woman sterile, because during the frequent practice of any such unhealthy visualization, much real creative energy is lost.

The larvae-egos of lasciviousness are real, thinking, autonomous entities within which a good percentage of consciousness is imprisoned. ―Paracelsus, cited in The Mystery of the Golden Flower by Samael Aun Weor

The larvae to which Paracelsus refers are none other than those cultivated forms of thought that owe their energy and existence solely to unnatural imagination. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Mystery of the Golden Flower

​Sexual Attacks in the Astral Plane

Pornographic Media

Intellectual criminology is found in books, magazines, bull fighting arenas, movie theaters, pamphlets, etc.

There are pornographic magazines that prostitute the minds of male and female youngsters in different countries.

When a pornographic representation reaches the mind, the unconsciousness traps that representation and elaborates its conceptual content. The conceptual content elaborated by the unconsciousness is the exact outcome of the quality of the representation. The psychological “I” traps that representation within the depths of the mind’s unconsciousness and elaborates its conceptual content with it. The conceptual content is translated as semi-conscious images within the world of the cosmic mind. These are the effigies of the mental world. The psychological “I” fornicates and commits adultery with those images within the plane of the cosmic mind. This is what the prostitution of the mind is. Nocturnal pollutions (wet dreams) are the morbid outcome of the prostitution of the mind.

There are also magazines [now matchmaking websites] for failures. In the magazines for the failures, women announce themselves. They solicit for a husband who is short, fat, skinny, with money, etc. Many young ladies are following that ultramodern example. This is mental prostitution. The outcome of this mental prostitution is critical. The interchange of writing begins. They start falling in love with someone they do not know and they start projecting plans. Yet, in the end, on the day when the couple meets, failure is the inevitable outcome.

Ladies who have never been prostitutes—honorable and distinguished young ladies—allow themselves to be cheated by modernism and fall into the crime of mental prostitution.

If a clairvoyant were to study in the mental plane the announcements of love of all of those magazines [matchmaking websites], one will see houses of prostitution. Each announcement of love corresponds in the mental world to a horrible mental bedroom of a whorehouse. Every clairvoyant is astonished when seeing those whorehouses of the mental plane.

Within each bedroom of those horrible dens a prostitute is found lying there. Men enter and leave from those bedrooms. Each announcement of the magazine corresponds to one of those bedrooms. The woman who placed the announcement is lying down in her bedroom. This is what the prostitution of the mental plane is.

True love has nothing to do with those whorehouses of the mental plane.

Thousands of young and distinguished ladies are perverting themselves with those types of magazines [and websites].

True love begins always with a flash of delectable affinity. It is substantiated with the force of tenderness, and it is synthesized in infinite, supreme adoration. ―Samael Aun Weor, Sexology: The Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology

The Struggle against Masturbation

​Techniques to Overcome Masturbation

How to Counter Lustful Obsessions

​How to Cleanse Oneself and Home

​Masturbation and Mental Health

Unfortunately, although it is pitiful to realize it, nowadays many children of twelve and thirteen years of age are already copulating. Moreover, those who are not yet copulating commit the crime of masturbation [and sodomy]. They eliminate their hormones, degenerate their brains and atrophy their pineal gland through masturbation. This is how they become sure candidates for a mental home.

It is well known that after coitus, the phallus continues with certain peristaltic movements conducive to receiving vital energies from the feminine uterus in an attempt to replace its wasted creative principles.

However, when masturbation [and sodomy] exists, instead of assimilating vital feminine energies with such peristaltic movements, useful principles for existence, the masturbator [or sodomite] absorbs cold air [or flatulences from the bodily fecal matter derived from ingested food and the secretions of the intestines], which passes directly to the brain. The outcome of this is idiocy, mental degeneration or insanity [devolution].

The vice of [sodomy and] masturbation is, unfortunately, also very popular among the feminine sex. Obviously, with such a vice, many women that could have been genial or good wives have prematurely become degenerated, have aged quickly, have lost their sexual potential, and have become true victims of life.

Therefore, it is important to know all these aspects of sex; it is important to know what sex is.

For adolescents to have sex is absurd, because they are mere seeds which have not yet completed their development. ―​Samael Aun Weor, Sexology: The Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology

​Healing the Damages of Masturbation

​Curing Impotence

The aloe is a great panacea for the healing of impotence.

The procedure is as follows: put into a casserole dish, pan, or pot one white panela (hard sugarcane commonly found in Colombia) so it can be melted by the fire. This casserole dish must not contain water.

Once the panela is liquefied, you must add the gel of a complete aloe plant, then add ten grams of iron. While it is on the fire, stir this very well with a handmill. When everything is very well stirred, then take the casserole dish from the fire and bottle up this substance, adding a little bit of sodium benzoate so that it cannot ferment. Label it, and take one spoonful of the remedy every hour. Impotence is cured with this marvelous formulae. ―​Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic

​Another Remedy for Virility

Listen: Lucifer represents the sexual potency. Who could deny that a male goat possesses a great sexual potency?
 
Sexually impotence is due to weakness. There exist different types of sexual impotence: i.e. sexual impotence because a damage to the nervous system, or because a damage to the creative organs. However, when the sexual impotence is totally due to weakness in the physical organs, this can be cured with the sexual hormones of that animal.
 
The testicles of the male goat must be boiled in milk and thereafter sweetened with sugar or honey. This milk charged with testosterone must be drank by the sexually impotent one. This will cure his impotence, because the sexual hormones of the male goat have the power to cure those who suffer sexual impotence. —Samael Aun a Weor, “Moses, the Great Kabbalist and Alchemist Magi”

​Can Supplements Heal Damages from Masturbation?

​Wet Dreams

Question: Would it be good to apply the technique of meditation on the death of the ego to the defects that we have in our dreams?

Samael Aun Weor: Many letters have been sent to me from people that have nocturnal pollutions. Almost all of them demand from me a recipe in order to be healed from that frightful sickness and I always answer them that as long as the egos of pollutions continue to exist, the pollutions will continue to exist.

Let us suppose that this person has a morbid dream, thus as a consequence he has a nocturnal pollution. What to do? In the precise moment of awakening physically, this person has to intensively work upon that ego that produced such a pollution. And he must appeal to the Divine Mother Kundalini Shakti so that she can disintegrate it and he must continue during the future periods of time working upon that ego. But if during another day another nocturnal pollution emerges, it is because another lustful ego produced it. Thus, the work must be repeated again until one day all of those types of egos related with pollutions will be terminated. That is the only way in order to be healed. ―​Samael Aun Weor, “Questions About the Elimination of the Ego”

​Massage During Vajroli Mudra

Regarding the massages over the prostate/uterus area and the sexual organs, there are three types: 
​
a) Gentle massage upon the prostate [lower abdomen] and creative organs.
b) Moderate massage upon the prostate/uterus [lower abdomen] and creative organs.
c) Strong massage upon the prostate [lower abdomen] and creative organs.

It is obvious that for men a strong massage on the prostate {lower belly] and sexual organs produces the erection of the phallus, this is clear, this is how it is; this is why the third type of massage is advisable for bachelors. Thus, when the phallus is erected, the transmutation of the semen into energy is produced, which one raises to the brain.

Regarding married men, the first or second types of massages are convenient for them, nothing else; rather, the first type is more than enough since they have a wife and of course they bring the phallus to a complete erection by means of the Sahaja Maithuna. ―​Samael Aun Weor, Sacred Rites for Rejuvenation

​White and Black Vajroli Mudra

​Finding an Alchemical Partner

Impure women are for impure men, and impure men for impure women, and pure women are for pure men, and pure men are for pure women: these are not affected by what people say [who are scandalized and offended by chastity]: for them there is forgiveness, and a provision honorable. ―Qur’an 24:26

​What to Do When Breaking One’s Chastity?

And just look at these men: their eye says it—they know nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.
 
Mud is at the bottom of their souls; and woe! if their mud also has spirit! ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Whosoever spills his semen after having worked with the Kundalini inevitably fails, because the Kundalini then descends one or more vertebrae in accordance with the magnitude of the fall... The initiate falls when he spills the semen. The work to raise the serpent after having fallen is very difficult and arduous. The Lord of Perfection said, "The disciple must never let himself fall, because whosoever falls then has to struggle a great deal to regain that which was lost." ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

The Reality of Sexual Falls

You cannot expect from a weak man something that requires strength. One can make demands of a man only in accordance with the strength he has to fulfill them. —Gurdjieff

As long as a man does not separate himself from himself he can achieve nothing, and no one can help him. To govern oneself is a very difficult thing — it is a problem for the future; it requires much power and demands much work. But this first thing, to separate oneself from oneself, does not require much strength, it only needs desire, serious desire, the desire of a grown-up man. If a man cannot do it, it shows that he lacks the desire of a grown-up man. Consequently it proves that there is nothing for him here [in the esoteric school]. What we do here can only be a doing suitable for grown-up men. —Gurdjieff

Our mind, our thinking, has nothing in common with us, with our essence—no connection, no dependence...

The mind is capable of functioning independently, but it also has the capacity of becoming identified with the essence, of becoming a function of the essence. In the majority of those present, the mind does not try to be independent but is merely a function...

At present we are not capable of controlling our states, and so it cannot be demanded of us. But when we acquire this capacity, corresponding demands will be made.

In order to understand better what I mean, I shall give you an example: now, in a calm state, not reacting to anything or anyone, I decide to set myself the task of establishing a good relationship with Mr. B., because I need him for business purposes and can do what I wish only with his help. But I dislike Mr. B. for he is a very disagreeable man. He understands nothing. He is a blockhead. He is vile, anything you like. I am so made that these traits affect me. Even if he merely looks at me, I become irritated. If he talks nonsense, I am beside myself. I am only a man, so I am weak and cannot persuade myself that I need not be annoyed—I shall go on being annoyed.

Yet I can control myself, depending on how serious my desire is to gain the end I wish to gain through him. If I keep to this purpose, to this desire, I shall be able to do so. No matter how annoyed I may be, this state of wishing will be in my mind. No matter how furious, how beside myself I am, in a corner of my mind I shall still remember the task I set myself. My mind is unable to restrain me from anything, unable to make me feel this or that toward him, but it is able to remember. I say to myself: “You need him, so don’t be cross or rude to him.” It could even happen that I would curse him, or hit him, but my mind would continue to pluck at me, reminding me that I should not do so. But the mind is powerless to do anything.

This is precisely what anyone who has a serious desire not to identify himself with his essence can do. This is what is meant by “separating the mind from the essence.”

And what happens when the mind becomes merely a function? If I am annoyed, if I lose my temper, I shall think, or rather “it” will think, in accordance with this annoyance, and I shall see everything in the light of the annoyance. To hell with it!

And so I say that with a serious man—a simple, ordinary man without any extraordinary powers, but a grown-up man—whatever he decides, whatever problem he has set himself, that problem will always remain in his head. Even if he cannot achieve it in practice, he will always keep it in his mind. Even if he is influenced by other considerations, his mind will not forget the problem he has set himself. He has a duty to perform and, if he is honest, he will strive to perform it, because he is a grown-up man.

No one can help him in this remembering, in this separation of oneself from oneself. A man must do it for himself. —Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World

​Repentance

According to the lexicons, tawbah (repentance) means "to return." Taba, aba, and anaba all have one meaning, which is "to return." Thaba is similar; people say, "The milk returned (thaba) to the udder." Outward repentance is the return from blameworthy actions to praiseworthy ones and from foul words to righteous ones. Inner repentance, with which the Sufi folk are concerned, is to turn away from all things and toward God, mighty and glorious. Repentance is not valid without three things: remorse for sin, abstention from it, and the resolution to not return to it. When one of these conditions is not met, repentance is not valid. This is the rule for repentance for sin between the servant and his Lord...

Ibn Mas'ud, may God be pleased with him, related that the Prophet, God bless and cherish him, said, "The one who turns from sin is like one who never sinned." ―A'ishah al-Ba'uniyyah, The Principles of Sufism

Satan frightens you of poverty and prompts you to [commit] indecent acts. But Allah promises you His forgiveness and grace, and Allah is all-bounteous, all-knowing. ―Al-Baqarah 268

O you who have faith! What is the matter with you that when you are told: "Go forth in the way of Allah," you sink heavily to the ground? Are you pleased with the life of this world instead of the Hereafter? But the wares of the life of this world compared with the Hereafter are but insignificant.

If you do not go forth, He will punish you with a painful punishment, and replace you with another people, and you will not hurt Him in the least, and Allah has power over all things. ―​Al-Tawbah (The Repentance) 38-39

Comprehension, Self-Reflection, and Honesty